Like Loth, Murray had mildly artistic leanings, and because he liked to draw and to sing, Keith, too, had to join in those studies, although both were elective, and although the singing classes twice a week consumed one of the two precious lunch hours that otherwise could be used so profitably for play or study.  Keith had neither aptitude nor interest for draftsmanship, being curiously set toward the written word.  He would have liked to sing well, as he had noticed that boys having a good voice were always popular and received a lot of flattering attention.  But his ear was so poor that for a while it looked as if he would not even be admitted to the singing practices.  His persistence prevailed in the end, and when he and Murray stood side by side, using the same song-book while practicing some brave old student song, he felt as much happiness as ever fell to his share in those days.

They had common hours in gymnastics, too, but they were compulsory three times a week, and Murray took them as a duty rather than a pleasure.  Keith them on the whole, and unlike most of the other boys, he preferred the slow routine of the setting-up exercises to the more athletic features.  While he never consciously realized the cause of that preference at the time, it would not have been difficult for a fairly intelligent observer to discover it.

Keith was still one of the smallest boys in the school utterly lacking any physical superiority, although he was in excellent health and never had experienced a single one of the ailments that commonly dodge the steps of childhood.  He could not shine in jumping or leaping or climbing, but in the drill his painstaking attention placed him on a par with everybody else.  It was his one chance of feeling himself the physical equal of his schoolmates, and it was the only field of common endeavour outside the lessons where he was not made to feel his own inferiority.

XIX

The insufficiency of one room as a living place for three persons had long been evident.  Keith was in his twelfth year, and he still slept on the chaiselongue opposite his father’s and mother’s bed.  He had ceased to pretend that the corner between the window and his mother’s bureau could possibly be considered a satisfactory “play-room.”  Then a tenant who had lived with them quite a while left, and the parlour became unexpectedly vacant.  Keith revelled in the free use of it, and his mother talked seriously of not renting it again, but the father insisted that they could not afford to keep it for themselves.

Then Keith’s mother had a bright idea.  She inserted an advertisement offering a home and “as good as parental care” to a boy from the country for the school season.  An answer was received, negotiations progressed favourably, and soon Albert Mendelius, the son of a minister, was installed in the parlour with understanding that his use of it was exclusive only at night.  In the daytime it was common ground for both boys, and Keith did his studying in there, but he continued to sleep on the chaiselongue.