"You an' your crazy ole bed," he began. "You an' your crazy"
"Go to it, Gilly," murmured some one.
"Show the darn fool"
Samuel returned the gaze coolly.
"Well," he said finally, "it's my bed"
He got no further, for Gilly hauled of and hit him succinctly in the nose.
"Yea! Gilly!"
"Show the big bully!"
"Just let him touch you—he'll see!"
The group closed in on them and for the first time in his life Samuel realized the insuperable inconvenience of being passionately detested. He gazed around helplessly at the glowering, violently hostile faces. He towered a head taller than his roommate, so if he hit back he'd be called a bully and have half a dozen more fights on his hands within five minutes; yet if he didn't he was a coward. For a moment he stood there facing Gilly's blazing eyes, and then, with a sudden choking sound, he forced his way through the ring and rushed from the room.
The month following bracketed the thirty most miserable days of his life. Every waking moment he was under the lashing tongues of his contemporaries; his habits and mannerisms became butts for intolerable witticisms and, of course, the sensitiveness of adolescence was a further thorn. He considered that he was a natural pariah; that the unpopularity at school would follow him through life.
