The Camera Fiend

CHAPTER I.
A CONSCIENTIOUS ASS

Pocket Upton had come down late and panting, in spite of his daily exemptionfrom first school, and the postcard on his plate had taken away his remainingmodicum of breath. He could have wept over it in open hall, and would probablyhave done so in the subsequent seclusion of his own study, had not an obviousway out of his difficulty been bothering him by that time almost as much as thedifficulty itself. For it was not a very honest way, and the unfortunate Pockethad been called “a conscientious ass” by some of the nicest fellowsin his house. Perhaps he deserved the epithet for going even as straight as hedid to his house-master, who was discovered correcting proses with a bluepencil and a briar pipe.

“Please, sir, Mr. Coverley can’t have me, sir. He’s got acase of chicken-pox, sir.”

The boy produced the actual intimation in a few strokes of an honoured but laconic pen. The man poised his pencil and puffed his pipe.

“Then you must come back to-night, and I’m just as glad. It’sall nonsense your staying the night whenever you go up to see that doctor ofyours.”

“He makes a great point of it, sir. He likes to try some fresh stuff onme, and then see what sort of night I have.”

“You could go up again to-morrow.”

“Of course I could, sir,” replied Pocket Upton, with a delicateemphasis on his penultimate. At the moment he was perhaps neither so acutelyconscientious nor such an ass as his critics considered him....