Chapter 23 - Page 2

impression. For a time
he tried to evade it, but ultimately David was presented to him
and invited gloomily to say it again. The upshot was that Oliver
advertised the Gardens of his intention to be good until he was
eight, and if he had not been wrecked by that time, to be as
jolly bad as a boy could be. He was naturally so bad that at the
Kindergarten Academy, when the mistress ordered whoever had done
the last naughty deed to step forward, Oliver's custom had been
to step forward, not necessarily because he had done it, but
because he presumed he very likely had.

The friendship of the two dated from this time, and at first I
thought Oliver discovered generosity in hasting to David as to an
equal; he also walked hand in hand with him, and even reproved
him for delinquencies like a loving elder brother. But 'tis a
gray world even in the Gardens, for I found that a new
arrangement had been made which reduced Oliver to life-size. He
had wearied of well-doing, and passed it on, so to speak, to his
friend. In other words, on David now devolved the task of being
good until he was eight, while Oliver clung to him so closely
that the one could not be wrecked without the other.

When this was made known to me it was already too late to break
the spell of Oliver, David was top-heavy with pride in him, and,
faith, I began to find myself very much in the cold, for Oliver
was frankly bored by me and even David seemed to think it would
be convenient if I went and sat with Irene. Am I affecting to
laugh? I was really distressed and lonely, and rather bitter; and
how humble I became. Sometimes when the dog Joey is unable, by
frisking, to induce Porthos to play with him, he stands on his
hind legs and begs it of him, and I do believe I was sometimes as
humble as Joey. Then David would insist on my being suffered to
join them, but it was plain that he had no real occasion for me.

It was an unheroic trouble, and I despised myself. For years I
had been fighting Mary for David, and had not wholly failed
though she was advantaged by the accident of relationship; was I
now to be knocked out so easily by a seven year old? I
reconsidered my weapons, and I fought Oliver and beat him.
Figure to yourself those two boys become as faithful to me as my
coat-tails.

With wrecked islands I did it. I began in the most unpretentious
way by telling them a story which might last an hour, and
favoured by many an unexpected wind it lasted eighteen months.
It started as the wreck of the simple Swiss family who looked up
and saw the butter tree, but soon a glorious inspiration of the
night turned it into the wreck of David A---- and Oliver Bailey.
At first it was what they were to do when they were wrecked, but