CHAPTER FOUR.
HOW SMITH AND I TOOK A BREATH OF FRESH AIR AND PAID FOR IT.
As "circumstances over which I had no control" prevented my joining my fellow troublesome and backward boys in their daily retreat to the playground for the next few days, I had only a limited opportunity of seeing how the new boy settled down to his new surroundings.
Inside Stonebridge House we were all alike, all equally subdued and "Henpecked." The playground was really the only place where any display of character could be made; and as for three days I was a prisoner, Smith remained as much a mystery to me at the end of the week as he had been on the day of his arrival.
I could, however, guess from his looks and the looks of the others that he was having rather a bad time of it out there.

Hawkesbury used to come in with such a gracious smile every afternoon that I was certain something was wrong; and Philpot's flushed face, and Rathbone's scowl, and Flanagan's unusual gravity, all went to corroborate the suspicion.
But Smith's face and manner were the most tell-tale.

The first day he had seemed a little doubtful, but gradually the lines of his mouth pulled tighter at the corners, and his eyes flashed oftener, and I could guess easily enough that he at least had not found his heart's content at Stonebridge House.
My term of penal servitude expired on Sunday; and in some respects I came out of it better than I had gone in.

For Mr Hashford had the charge of all detained boys, and he, good-hearted, Henniker-dreading usher that he was, had spent the three days in drilling me hard in decimal fractions; and so well too, that I actually came to enjoy the exercise, and looked upon the "repeating dot" as a positive pastime.
Even Miss Henniker could not rob me of that pleasure.
"Batchelor," whispered Flanagan to me, as we walked two and two to church behind the Henniker that Sunday, "that new fellow's an awfully queer cove.

I can't make him out." "Nor can I.