A great many boys are sulky because they have not the boldness to be anything else; and a great many others are so because to their small minds it is the grandest way of displaying their wrath.

If only they could see how ridiculous they are! I once knew two boys who for some time had been firm friends at school.
By some unlucky chance a misunderstanding occurred which interrupted this friendship, and the grievance was, or appeared to be, so sore, that neither boy would speak to the other.

Well, this went on for no less than six months, and became the talk of the whole school.

These silly boys, however, were so convinced of the sublimity of their respective conducts that they never observed that every one was laughing at them.
Daily they passed one another, with eyes averted and noses high in the air; daily they fed their memories with the recollection of their smart.
For six months never a word passed between them.

Then came the summer holidays, in the course of which it suddenly occurred to both these boys, being not altogether senseless boys, that after all they were making themselves rather ridiculous.