probably give him as few orders as possible. He will almost ingeniously
evade any that are inevitably or thoughtlessly inflicted upon him, but if
he does but succeed in only postponing his obedience, he has, visibly,
done something for his own relief. It is less convenient that he should
hold mere questions, addressed to him in all good faith, as in some sort
an attempt upon his liberty.

Questions about himself one might understand to be an outrage. But it is
against impersonal and indifferent questions also that the boy sets his
face like a rock. He has no ambition to give information on any point.
Older people may not dislike the opportunity, and there are even those
who bring to pass questions of a trivial kind for the pleasure of
answering them with animation. This, the boy perhaps thinks, is "fuss,"
and, if he has any passions, he has a passionate dislike of fuss.

When a younger child tears the boy's scrapbook (which is conjectured,
though not known, to be the dearest thing he has) he betrays no emotion;
that was to be expected. But when the stolen pages are rescued and put
by for him, he abstains from taking an interest in the retrieval; he will
do nothing to restore them. To do so would mar the integrity of his
reserve. If he would do much rather than answer questions, he would
suffer something rather than ask them.

He loves his father and a friend of his father's, and he pushes them, in
order to show it without compromising his temperament.

He is a partisan in silence. It may be guessed that he is often occupied
in comparing other people with his admired men. Of this too he says
little, except some brief word of allusion to what other men do _not_ do.