They jumped up on to the steps to shake hands with him, and Tom mumbled
thanks for the presents he had found in his study, and looked round
anxiously for Arthur's mother.
East, who had fallen back into his usual humour, looked quaintly at
Arthur, and said,--
"So you've been at it again, through that hot-headed convert of yours
there. He's been making our lives a burden to us all the morning about
using cribs. I shall get floored to a certainty at second lesson, if I'm
called up."
Arthur blushed and looked down. Tom struck in,--
"Oh, it's all right. He's converted already; he always comes through the
mud after us, grumbling and sputtering."
The clock struck, and they had to go off to school, wishing Arthur a
pleasant holiday, Tom, lingering behind a moment to send his thanks and
love to Arthur's mother.
Tom renewed the discussion after second lesson, and succeeded so far as
to get East to promise to give the new plan a fair trial.
Encouraged by his success, in the evening, when they were sitting alone
in the large study, where East lived now almost, "vice Arthur on leave,"
after examining the new fishing-rod, which both pronounced to be the
genuine article ("play enough to throw a midge tied on a single
hair against the wind, and strength enough to hold a grampus"), they
naturally began talking about Arthur. Tom, who was still bubbling over
with last night's scene and all the thoughts of the last week, and
wanting to clinch and fix the whole in his own mind, which he could
never do without first going through the process of belabouring somebody
else with it all, suddenly rushed into the subject of Arthur's illness,
and what he had said about death.
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