And then he felt the misery of his life. It seemed
to his childish mind that this unhappiness must go
on for ever. For no particular reason he remembered
that cold morning when Emma had taken him out of bed
and put him beside his mother. He had not thought
of it once since it happened, but now he seemed to
feel the warmth of his mother’s body against
his and her arms around him. Suddenly it seemed
to him that his life was a dream, his mother’s
death, and the life at the vicarage, and these two
wretched days at school, and he would awake in the
morning and be back again at home. His tears
dried as he thought of it. He was too unhappy,
it must be nothing but a dream, and his mother was
alive, and Emma would come up presently and go to
bed. He fell asleep.
But when he awoke next morning it was to the clanging
of a bell, and the first thing his eyes saw was the
green curtain of his cubicle.
As time went on Philip’s deformity ceased to
interest. It was accepted like one boy’s
red hair and another’s unreasonable corpulence.
But meanwhile he had grown horribly sensitive.
He never ran if he could help it, because he knew
it made his limp more conspicuous, and he adopted a
peculiar walk. He stood still as much as he could,
with his club-foot behind the other, so that it should
not attract notice, and he was constantly on the look
out for any reference to it. Because he could
not join in the games which other boys played, their
life remained strange to him; he only interested himself
from the outside in their doings; and it seemed to
him that there was a barrier between them and him.
Sometimes they seemed to think that it was his fault
if he could not play football, and he was unable to
make them understand. He was left a good deal
to himself. He had been inclined to talkativeness,
but gradually he became silent. He began to think
of the difference between himself and others.
The biggest boy in his dormitory, Singer, took a dislike
to him, and Philip, small for his age, had to put
up with a good deal of hard treatment. About
half-way through the term a mania ran through the school
for a game called Nibs. It was a game for two,
played on a table or a form with steel pens.
You had to push your nib with the finger-nail so as
to get the point of it over your opponent’s,
while he manoeuvred to prevent this and to get the
point of his nib over the back of yours; when this
result was achieved you breathed on the ball of your
thumb, pressed it hard on the two nibs, and if you
were able then to lift them without dropping either,
both nibs became yours. Soon nothing was seen
but boys playing this game, and the more skilful acquired
vast stores of nibs. But in a little while Mr.
Watson made up his mind that it was a form of gambling,
forbade the game, and confiscated all the nibs in the
boys’ possession. Philip had been very
adroit, and it was with a heavy heart that he gave
