My sister is a sensible girl, but she is "literary." She
had a joke in _Life_ once, and since that time she has neglected almost
everything but writing and her brother. She doesn't neglect me, and
altogether I'm glad she writes, since it fills her with enthusiasm until
the articles come back, and up to now she had not written poetry. But,
as I say, I leaned upon a broken reed, for when, the next day, I asked
her what she was writing, she laughed and showed me a sonnet.
"Poetry, eh?" I said, disapprovingly, as I looked over her manuscript.
"Yes," she answered, modestly. "A sonnet."
And I read, "To S.W."
"Who's 'S.W.?'" I asked, with a frown, although I little suspected what
her answer would be.
"Sam Wilkins," she replied.
I then realized the full force of Caesar's "Et tu, Brute?" and fled.
Meanwhile Wilkins was becoming insufferable. If Bunthorne was an ass, he
was at least clever, but this Wilkins--he was a whole drove of asses,
and not a redeeming feature to the lot. He could no more account for
his sudden popularity than we could, but he could not help realizing it
after a week or two, and then, for the first time in his life, he began
to take notice. We men all wanted to thrash him, and I think Burnham
would have done it if the rest of us hadn't prevented him.
"He needed a licking before this," said Harry, "but now he's worse than
ever. It isn't conscious rectitude now, it's triumphant virtue.
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