"I'll have it out with you yet!" said Master Ned, short-windedly,
adjusting his coat, and glaring savagely.
"All right!" said Phil, equally out of breath. Ned then left the
field, with a look of contempt for the company.
After that, things went on in the old pleasant manner, except that
Ned, without any overt act to precipitate a fight, habitually treated
Phil with a most annoying air of scorn and derision. This, though
endured silently, was certainly most exasperating.
But it had not to be endured much of the time, for Ned had grown more
and more to disdain our society, and to cultivate companions superior
to us in years and knowledge of the world. They were, indeed, a smart,
trick-playing, swearing set, who aped their elders in drinking,
dicing, card-gambling, and even in wenching. Their zest in this
imitation was the greater for being necessarily exercised in secret
corners, and for their freshness to the vices they affected.
I do not say I was too good for this company and their practices; or
that Philip was either. Indeed we had more than a mere glimpse of
both, for boys, no matter how studious or how aspiring in the long
run, will see what life they can; will seek the taste of forbidden
fruit, and will go looking for temptations to yield to. Indeed, the
higher a boy's intelligence, the more eager may be his curiosity for,
his first enjoyment of, the sins as well as the other pleasures.
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