proper respect, so, since he was senior and thus magnificent, I'll
begin by describing him.

He was right in saying that he was the handsomest. He was a tall boy
of fifteen years, with long limbs that were saved from any unlovely
slimness by their full-fleshed curves and perfect straightness. His
face, whose skin was as smooth as that of a bathed and anointed
Greek, was crowned by dark hair, and made striking by a pair of
those long-lashed eyes that are always brown. And in character he
was the most remarkable. Though two years our senior, he
deliberately lagged behind the boys of his own age, and remained the
oldest member of our form. Thoughtless masters called him a dunce,
but abler ones knew him to be only idle. And Pennybet cared little
for either opinion. He had schemed to remain in a low form; and that
was enough. It was better to be a field-marshal among the "kids"
than a ranker among his peers. Like Satan, for whom he probably felt
a certain admiration, he found it better to reign in hell than serve
in heaven.

The personal attendants of this splendid sultan consisted of Edgar
Doe and myself. We were not allowed by him to forget that, if he
could total fifteen years, we could only scrape together a bare
thirteen. We were mere children. Doe and I, being thirteen and an
exact number of days, were twins, or we would have been, had it not
been for the divergence of our parentage. We often expressed a wish
that this divergence were capable of remedy. It involved minor
differences. For instance, while Doe's eyes were brown, mine were
blue; and while Doe's hair was very fair, mine was a tedious drab
that had once been gold. Moreover, in place of my wide mouth, Doe
possessed lips that were always parted like those of a pretty girl.