Not another in a hundred would have cheeked it the way you did." It pleased him, too, to see boys smaller than himself look round as they passed him, and whisper something which made their companions turn round too.

Dick grew fond of small boys as the term went on.
It pleased him still more to be taken notice of by a few bigger boys, to find himself claimed by Hooker and Duffield as a crony, to be bantered by the aesthetic Wrangham, and patronised by the stout Bull.
All this made him go over the adventures of that memorable day often in his mind, and think that after all it wasn't a bad day's sport, and that, though he said so who shouldn't, he had managed things fairly well, and got his money's worth.
His money's worth, however, reminded him of his lost half-sovereign and his mother's photograph, and these reflections usually pulled him up short in his reminiscences.
Heathcote, in a more philosophical and dismal way, had his perils, and Pledge gave him no help through his difficulty.

On the contrary, he encouraged his growing discontent.
"Dismals again ?" said he, one evening.

"That cane of Winter's must be a stiff one if it cuts you up like that." "Winter always does lay it on thick to the kids, though," said Wrangham, who happened to be present.

"His lickings are in inverse ratio to the size of the licked." It did comfort Heathcote to hear his case discussed in such learned and mathematical terms, but that was all the consolation he got.
Dick was in far too exalted a frame of mind to give much assistance.
"What does it matter ?" said he, recklessly.