" Others said: "Archie
is so frail and sensitive, and so wrapped up in his music, how _can_
Hock find anything in him that is jolly, and boyish, and congenial?"
But Hock's people and Archie's people knew that one supplied what the
other lacked. For so often this conversation between the two boys would
be overheard. Archie's plaintive voice would say: "Oh, Hock, it is so
good to have you around; you make me forget that I can't play hockey
and football with the rest of the kids! You play it for me as well as
for yourself. I'm such a dub; laid up sick half the time."
And Hock would frequently be heard to remark: "Say, Arch, do you know
if it weren't for you I'd grow into a regular tough. You kind of keep
me straight, and--oh, well, straight and all that!"
And so the odd friendship went on, Hock attending his school daily--the
acknowledged leader of all the sports and mischief that existed; Archie
getting to school about two days out of every five, yet managing through
his hours of illness to mount week by week, month by month, up, up, up
in his music.
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