d him as keenly as he envied me mine.
I did not admire it; I could not see the use of it. Generally speaking,
it called forth irritation rather than affection. A purple-faced old
gentleman, close to whose ear he once performed, promptly cuffed his
head for it; and for so doing was commended by the whole street as a
public benefactor. Drivers of vehicles would respond by flicking at him,
occasionally with success. Even youth, from whom sympathy might have
been expected, appeared impelled, if anything happened to be at all
handy, to take it up and throw it at him. My own social circle would,
I knew, regard it as a vulgar accomplishment, and even Wakeham himself
dared not perform it in the hearing of his own classmates. That any
human being should have desired to acquire it seems incomprehensible.
Yet for weeks in secret I had wrestled to produce the hideous sound.
Why? For three reasons, so far as I can analyse this youngster of whom I
am writing:

Firstly, here was a means of attracting attention; secondly, it was
something that somebody else could do and that he couldn't; thirdly, it
was a thing for which he evidently had no natural aptitude whatever, and
therefore a thing to acquire which his soul yearned the more. Had a boy
come across his path, clever at walking on his hands with his heels in
the air, Master Paul Kelver would in all probability have broken his
neck in attempts to copy and excel. I make no apologies for the brat:
I merely present him as a study for the amusement of a world of wiser
boys--and men.

I struck a bargain with young Wakeham; I undertook to teach him to be
funny in return for his teaching me this costermonger's whistle.

Each of us strove conscientiously to impart knowledge. Neither of us
succeeded. Wakeham tried hard to be funny; I tried hard to whistle. He
did all I told him; I followed his instructions implicitly. The result
was the feeblest of wit and the feeblest of whistles.

"Do you think anybody would laugh at that?" Wakeham would pathetically
enquire at the termination of his supremest effort. And honestly I would
have to confess I did not think any living being would.

"How far off do you think any one could hear that?" I would demand
anxiously, on recovering sufficient breath to speak at all.

"Well, it would depend upon whether you knew it was coming," Wakeham
would reply kindly, not wishing to discourage me.

We abandoned the scheme by mutual consent at about the end of a