CHAPTER IX.
A DISCOVERY.
The friendship of Robert had gained Shargar the favourable notice of
others of the school-public. These were chiefly of those who came
from the country, ready to follow an example set them by a town boy.
When his desertion was known, moved both by their compassion for
him, and their respect for Robert, they began to give him some
portion of the dinner they brought with them; and never in his life
had Shargar fared so well as for the first week after he had been
cast upon the world. But in proportion as their interest faded with
the novelty, so their appetites reasserted former claims of use and
wont, and Shargar began once more to feel the pangs of hunger. For
all that Robert could manage to procure for him without attracting
the attention he was so anxious to avoid, was little more than
sufficient to keep his hunger alive, Shargar being gifted with a
great appetite, and Robert having no allowance of pocket-money from
his grandmother. The threepence he had been able to spend on him
were what remained of sixpence Mr. Innes had given him for an
exercise which he wrote in blank verse instead of in prose--an
achievement of which the school-master was proud, both from his
reverence for Milton, and from his inability to compose a metrical
line himself. And how and when he should ever possess another penny
was even unimaginable. Shargar's shilling was likewise spent. So
Robert could but go on pocketing instead of eating all that he
dared, watching anxiously for opportunity of evading the eyes of his
grandmother.
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