V
But after that morning things were never again quite the same. He gave
himself up deliberately to the new life.
With that serious devotion towards anything likely to be of real
practical value to him that was, in his later years, never to fail him,
he attacked this business of "words." He discovered that if he made
certain sounds when certain things were said to him he provoked instant
applause. He liked popularity; he liked the rewards that popularity
brought him. He acquired a formula that amounted practically to "Wash
dat?" And whenever he saw anything new he produced his question. He
learnt with amazing rapidity. He was, his nurse repeatedly told his
father, "a most remarkable child."
It could not truthfully be said that during these weeks he forgot his
friend altogether. There were still the dark hours at night when he
longed for him, and once or twice he had cried aloud for him. But slowly
that slipped away. He did not look often now at the fountain.
There were times when his friend was almost there. One evening, kneeling
on the floor before the fire, arranging shining soldiers in a row, he
was aware of something that made him sharply pause and raise his head.
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