Good-bye, my boy; glad to see you doing so well.

You've a lot to be thankful for, and of course you are." "Will you come again ?" I asked.
"Gladly; that is, if Billy allows me," said he, laughing, and nodding kindly as he left the room.
"No wonder," thought I, as I listened to his footsteps going down stairs--"no wonder Jack Smith found these lodgings pleasanter than Beadle Square." I saw Mr Smith frequently during the next few days.

He usually came up to sit with me for half an hour or so in the morning, and was always the same cheery and interesting companion.
And yet I could not quite make him out.

For when not talking or smiling his face used to wear a look of habitual trouble and restlessness, which made me suspect he was either making an effort to be cheery before me, or else that he was the victim of a constant battle between good spirits and bad.
However, just as I was getting to feel intimate with him, and looking forward to hear more about him than I had yet learned, my recovery came to a sudden and rather serious halt.
I was lying one evening propped up in my bed, with my damaged arm feeling comparatively comfortable, and myself in a particularly jovial frame of mind as I listened to Jack Smith attempting to instil into the mind of the volatile Billy the art of spelling d-o-g--dog.
"Now, Billy," said the instructor, "you'll never get on at this rate.
That letter you're pointing at is a B for Billy, and not a D." "That there B's a caution," growled the boy; "he's always a-turnin' up." "Time you knew him, then," said Smith.

"Now show us the D." Billy cocked his head a little to one side and took a critical survey of the alphabet before him.