If Dicky had been a prig like me, he would have tried to talk to me like a father, and driven me crazy.

It made all the difference that he understood me, and yet believed in me a little.
"It strikes me," said he, with refreshing candour, "you fancy yourself a bit too much, Tommy.

I'd advise you to lie low a bit, and it will all come round." "That's just exactly what Tempest said to me the first day of term," said I, with a groan.
"There you are," said he; "bless you, you're not going to get done over one wretched term, are you?
I wouldn't if I were you." "But all the chaps are down on me." "What do you care ?" said he, with a snort.

"Who cares twopence about the lot of them--chaps like them too?
You're a cut better than that lot, I fancy--ought to be, anyhow." What balm it all was to my wounds! What miles of mud we ploughed through that afternoon I and how, as the water gradually leaked into my boots, my heart rose out of them, and got back somehow to its proper place, and enabled me to look at things in their proper light.

I think Dicky, little as he knew it, was sent by God to help me pull myself together, and I shall always think better of him for his blunt, genuine encouragement that day.
On our way back he pulled up at Redwood's door.
"Let's see if he's in," said he; "he won't mind." "All right," said I, beginning to quail again a little, and yet determined to go through with the whole business.
Redwood was in, mending a pair of skates, in anticipation of a day or two's frost before the holidays were over.
"Look here, Redwood," said Dicky, determined to make things easy for me.
"Old Jones minimus is in the blues.