I soon found that life had changed for me. I was under an authority now, rigorous and uncompromising, which didn't seem to understand in the least the natural instincts for freedom and self-expression of a half-wild boy like me. Already before the new term opened I had had two days' experience of the school cells, where I was shut up in solitude and darkness for some offence against the regulations, which I suppose was serious enough to the minds of the pedants who imprisoned me, but which to me seemed merely the natural corollary of my whole upbringing. And of course I was soon dispossessed of my knife; but learning caution I managed to keep my pistol safely hidden. It was Staggers who robbed me of my knife, for he remembered it from of old; and it was he too who brought me my stale crust and mug of water, three times a day while I was in the cells. I wasn't in very good spirits when Worthing returned, but his steady companionship soon restored me to something of my usual cheerfulness. I clung to him for a while with a sort of yearning affection because of the loneliness of my heart now that my father had left me and this strange narrow life had closed about me like a prison wall. And yet our friendship wasn't all milk and honey. For Worthing, with a passion I suppose of setting me in the right path as he conceived it, lectured me and scolded me, sometimes stinging me to the soul with his cold rebukes, till at times I broke from him impatiently, and in desperation turned to the wilder of my companions where I was sure to find an appreciative welcome. And then would follow some escapade, the more daring and risky share of it always falling to my lot, which would lead to a further encounter with authority and the inevitable flogging, and perhaps another day or two in the cells. And at these times Worthing stood silently by with no look of compassion; nor in my confinement did he attempt to break through to bring me any comfort, as I knew I should have done were he in my case. And when I was released he had such an air of passing it all over, as though I had committed some personal offence against himself which he had forgiven, that it was difficult sometimes not to upbraid him for his callous indifference. Once I remember he turned on me with a passion not usual with him, and said, "I suppose when you've made an unmitigated ass of yourself you want me to weep over you and stroke you and pet you like a baby! I tell you if you think that's what it means to be a friend, you'd better find some one else; that's all." "Why, Worthing!" I exclaimed, trying to appease him; for he seemed almost on the verge of tears; an unprecedented thing, the mere possibility of which dismayed me. "Look here, Tommy," he cried, "let's thrash this thing out once for all. If you think it doesn't hurt me to see you--to see you--" "Flogged," I said, helping him out.