"I used to be ashamed
of it, but--"
"You needn't be," said the officer. "It's not what a boy _was_, but
what he _is_, that counts nowadays. Goodnight! I wish we had more
Britishers like you."
Then the door closed and the tramp of the policemen and their prisoners
died slowly away in the night.
The Broken String
Archie Anderson was lying on the lounge that was just hidden from the
front room by a bend of the folding doors. He was utterly tired out,
with that unreasonable weariness that comes from what most of his boy
chums called "doing nothing." He had been standing still, practising for
two hours steadily, and his throbbing head and weakening knees finally
conquered his energy. He flung himself down among the pillows, his
violin and bow on a nearby chair. Then a voice jarred on every nerve of
his sensitive body; it was a lady's voice in the next room, and she was
saying to his mother:
"And how is poor Archie to-day?"
"Poor Archie!" How he hated to be called "poor" Archie!
His mother's voice softened as she replied: "Oh, he's _pretty_ well
to-day; his head aches and he seems to be weak, but he has been
practising all the morning.
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