yes.

He befriended me because it was of his generous nature to befriend all
the lonelier boys. He used to pal with all the school "freaks," to
counsel them, to drill them privately, so that they should be more
proficient on parade. He used to make me very jealous of his large
circle of small worshippers. I thought that privilege ought to be kept
for me alone.

He used to read with me, on spring nights, in the school's dingy
library. We read "David Copperfield" together; and would glance up from
the page to watch, from the windows, the pale but glowing battle of
sunset colors over the hills and mirrored in the darkling stretch of the
Hudson. And sometimes, when the story would not give us respite, he
would smuggle the book up into the dormitory--and when all was dark
there, and the proctor slept, we would creep into the hall and read by
its dusky light until long into the night. I have read "David
Copperfield" again since then--but not with so exquisite a thrill.

And reading of Steerforth, I used to look up at Sydney and imagine that
he was that fine, attractive fellow--and that I, dumb but ecstatic in my
pride of friendship, was little David.

It seemed so wonderful to me, especially, that he was a Christian and I
a Jew, and yet there had never been any question of difference between
us. Other boys who had given me something of their friendship had made
such a brave point of telling me that they didn't mind my being a
Jew--that there were just as many good Jews as there were bad ones--and
all those other stupid and inevitable remarks that we must swallow and
forget. But with Sydney it was not like that. He had never mentioned it,
and it seemed as if he knew that I dreaded the subject--and so kept
silent on it out of kindness.

Sometimes, when the days were warm and the trees were budding, we went
off together on long walks through the country. Sydney taught me to
smoke cigarettes, and we would stop on our way at a little village store
that lay at the end of a hilly road.

An old man, who was an invalid, owned the store. But he sat all day at
his little card table in the dark, untidy rear, playing solitaire; and
it was his young daughter who would wait on us behind the counter.

She was a thin, dull-looking girl, scarcely pretty, yet with large,
sombre eyes that her lonely task explained. She was ignorant, I am sure,
and knew little of what went on in the town at the river's edge or in
the big city, fifty-odd m