in the
dormitory nor anywhere near it, but right away in a cellar below the
ground where there were some old lockers and play-boxes. Flinging
myself first to one side of the cellar and then to the other, I tore
at the walls in an agonised endeavour to get out. The last thing
that I remember was shrieking loudly and feeling a moisture rise to
my dry lips and pass down my chin.

Sec.3

I awoke with a dull sense of impending trouble to find myself abed
in the Bramhall sick-room, into which long shafts of noonday
sunlight were streaming from behind drawn blinds. Looking down upon
me was Dr. Chapman, with his usual white waistcoat and moist cigar.

"Ah ha!" he said. "Now, Gem, what the dooce do you think is the
matter with you?"

I replied that I didn't know, and, just to see what he would say,
asked him why he called me "Gem."

"Gem? Whoever called you 'Gem'? Did I? Yes, of course I did--it's
short for Jeremiah."

"The gifted old liar!" I thought, while I demanded aloud his reason
for calling me "Jeremiah."

"Why, because you look so dam--miserable, as though your eyes would
gush out with water."

And partly at this idea, partly at his skill in getting out of a
difficulty, Chappy laughed so heartily that I laughed too, only with
this difference--that, whereas his laugh was like sounding brass,
mine was like a tinkling cymbal. Then he sat down by my bed and,
taking my wrist in one hand, pushed up the sleeve of my pyjama
jacket and felt my smooth, firm forearm. "Good enough," he said, and
proceeded to open the jacket down the front, and feel my chest and
waist, thumping me in both of them, and expecting me to gurgle
thereat like a sixpenny toy.

"You're all right," he decided, "except that you're an ass. Take
your medical man's word for it--you're an ass. My prescription is
'Cease to be lunatic three times daily and after eating.' My fee'll
be a guinea, please."

I said nothing, but looked at him for further advice.

"Confound you! Don't look at me with those Jeremiad eyes. What have
you been doing, moping indoors for the last ten days instead of
playing in the fresh air?"

"I wasn't moping--" I began sullenly.

"Now, sulky--sulky!" interrupted Chappy.

"I wasn't moping. I went and got a thousand lines from Mr. Fillet--"

"Yes, I know. The damned old stinker!" said Chappy, always coarse
and delightful.

I think I loved him for those words. I felt that my allies were
swinging into line for the great