It was a way he had, and it always
settled the matter. A cold, tired look would appear on his face if Keith
tried to press a subject after such an answer, and before that look
Keith quailed.
His state was hopeless. He accepted as law whatever his friend said or
did. And although their friendship, such as it was, lasted only two
years, Keith did not take up smoking until he was in camp as a
conscript at the age of twenty.
In school it was the same. And the fact that Murray attended to his
studies with scrupulous exactness was probably one of the factors that
helped Keith through the grade without any loss of standing as
a scholar.
Like Loth, Murray had mildly artistic leanings, and because he liked to
draw and to sing, Keith, too, had to join in those studies, although
both were elective, and although the singing classes twice a week
consumed one of the two precious lunch hours that otherwise could be
used so profitably for play or study. Keith had neither aptitude nor
interest for draftsmanship, being curiously set toward the written word.
He would have liked to sing well, as he had noticed that boys having a
good voice were always popular and received a lot of flattering
attention. But his ear was so poor that for a while it looked as if he
would not even be admitted to the singing practices.
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