“Well, damn it, I was! If he hadn’t come looking as fine as a drunken shoemaker in my old clothes, I never should have known!” McGaw’s emotions didn’t contribute in any way to Wolcott’s enjoyment of his discovery,--why should Haydock branch off and make such a tiresome point of them! “It’s too bad you offended him that way,” Haydock reflected; “for of course he must be frightfully offended. He’s utterly in the dark about the thing,--he wouldn’t have worn the clothes to your room if he weren’t; and he just thinks he looks like an overdressed fool in them. He’ll go home and take them off, and never wear them again.” “Then he certainly will be a fool,” answered Wolcott, a trifle sulkily. “He looked extremely nice in them. If I’d known how well they looked on, I shouldn’t have given them away.” He spoke as if he were perfectly insensitive to McGaw’s probable anger and mortification; but Haydock knew that he wasn’t. “It’s funny, of course; but I’m mighty sorry it happened.” The more Haydock thought of the way Sears had behaved, the more it worried him. “You can insult your friends without its making any particular difference, I suppose; they either refuse to take you seriously, or insult back, just as they please. But McGaw’s different,--he’s a defenceless, pathetic sort of a creature, and tremendously sensitive; I could see that whenever I met him in your room. He’s the kind of fellow that makes you feel that ‘something ought to be done about it.’” “I think I have done a little,” suggested Wolcott, embarrassed at referring to his own good works, yet desirous of defending himself. “It doesn’t put you in a better light with McGaw though; and his feelings aren’t any the less hurt on that account. All he thinks is, that he made a ridiculous exhibition of himself in somebody else’s clothes, and that you were coarse and heartless about it.” “I’m afraid you flatter me,” muttered Wolcott. “Come, now, Searsy, you know, just as well as I do, how people feel when you laugh at them.” The Magnificent One’s laugh, when exerted upon certain temperaments, was indeed a terrifically effective engine. Wolcott’s sense of ridicule was not fine; it was powerless to discover the one vulnerable spot and stab neatly. But if it couldn’t dissect, it could crush like a boulder toppling from a precipice. “Remember poor little Bemis!” Wolcott coloured; he had once bet that he could make little Bemis cry inside of fifteen minutes, without touching him. That he had won the bet in eleven minutes and six seconds was a success of which he was not very proud. “This isn’t as bad as that time,” Haydock went on; “because you didn’t do it on purpose.”