Well, isn't it too bad when next moment you hear that wretched Ebenezer saying, in answer to the same invitation, "Very sorry, but I mean to read this afternoon," and then have him come and sit down on a bench beside you with his book?
And the worst of it is, you know if you now change your mind and go in for the match after all, he will change _his_ mind and do the same.
The most aggravating thing about unoriginal fellows is that you cannot well get in a rage with them, for if you find fault with them, you find fault with yourselves.
"What a young ass you are not to play in the match!" you say to Ebenezer, hardly able to contain yourself.
"Why aren't _you_ playing in it ?" he replies.
"Oh! I've some particular reading I want to do," you say.
"So have I," replies he.
You cannot say, "You have no business to read when cricket is going on," nor can you say, "What do you mean by it ?" Clearly, if _you_ do it, you are not the person to say _he_ shall not.
I doubt if Ebenezer knows to what an extent he carries this trick of his.

It is so natural for him to do as he sees others do that he fails to see how his actions appear in the same light as that in which others see them.

Sometimes, indeed, he appears to be conscious of following his copy pretty closely, for we catch him trying to make some slight variation which will prevent it being said he does exactly the same.
For instance, if you give a little select supper party in your study to two friends off roast potatoes and sardines, he will probably have three friends to breakfast off eggs and bread and jam; or if you hang up the portraits of your father and sister over your mantelpiece, he will suspend the likenesses of his mother and brother on his wall.

He generally, you will find, tries to improve on you--which, of course, is not always hard to do.

But sometimes he comes to grief in the attempt, as happened in the case of his wonderful "hanging shelves." Ted Hammer, quite a mechanical genius, had made to himself a set of these shelves, which for neatness, simplicity, and usefulness were the marvel of the school.