of little things.—Oh, I suppose I started in wrong with the fellows
somehow.”

He was silent for a moment, in dejection.

“A good many do that,” said Dr. Davenport. “There would be small
progress in the world if there never was any rectifying of false
starts.”

“I can hardly help it if I look young,” said Irving. “That’s one of my
troubles. I suppose I ought to avoid acting young. I haven’t,
altogether. They call me Kiddy.”

“We get hardened to nicknames,” observed the rector. “But often they’re
affectionate. At least I like to cherish that delusion with regard to
mine; my legs have the same curve as Napoleon’s, and I have been known
as ‘Old Hoopo’ for years.”

“But they don’t call you that to your face.”

“No, not exactly. Have they been calling you ‘Kiddy’ to your face?”

“It amounts to that.” Irving narrated the remarks that he had overheard
in dormitory, and then described Westby’s performance at the blackboard.

“That certainly deserved rebuke,” agreed the rector. “Though I think
Westby was attempting to be facetious rather than insolent; I have never
seen anything to indicate that he was a malicious boy.—What was it that
Louis Collingwood did?”