Baltimore had been informed that Jeremy was to look after him.
“Mr. Thompson says you’re to look after me,” he said, “and not let the boys kick me or take things out of my play-box; and if they do I’m to tell Mr. Thompson.”
Jeremy’s cheeks paled with horror as he heard this declaration.
“Oh, I say, you mustn’t do that,” he declared. “That would be sneaking. You mustn’t tell Thompson things.”
“Why mustn’t I?” asked Baltimore, producing a large cake of chocolate from his play-box and proceeding to eat it.
“Oh, because—because—sneaking’s worse than anything.”
“My mother said I was to,” said Baltimore.
“And you mustn’t talk about your mother either,” said Jeremy, “nor any of your people at home.”
Baltimore nodded his head in a determined manner.
That evening was an unhappy one. Jeremy, kept by the matron over some silly business connected with his underclothes, came late into the dormitory to discover a naked Baltimore being beaten with hair-brushes. That was a difficult moment for him, but he dealt with it in the traditional manner of school heroes. He rushed into the midst of the gang, rescued Percy and challenged the room. He was popular and known for a determined fighter, so there was some laughter and jeering; but Baltimore was allowed to creep into his bed.
Next morning the school understood that young Stocky Cole had a new _protégé_ and that it was that terrible new boy Pimply Percy. Jeremy’s best friend, Riley minor, spoke to him seriously about it.
“I say, Stocky, it isn’t true that you’ve taken up with that awful new kid?”
“Thompson says I’ve got to look after him,” Jeremy explained.
“But he’s the worst of the lot,” Riley complained disgustedly.
“Well, I’ve got to anyway,” said Jeremy shortly.
The sad part of it was that Baltimore was by no means grateful for Jeremy’s championship.
“You might have come in earlier,” he said. “I don’t call that looking after me.”
He now followed Jeremy like a shadow, a complaining, snivelling, whining shadow.
“Look here,” he said. “We needn’t be together all the time. If you’re in trouble or anything you just give me a shout. I’m sure to be round somewhere.”
“That isn’t what Mr. Thompson said,” he remarked. “He said that you’d look after me. But how can you look after me if you’re not there?”