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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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396 ‘Do we go all the way today?’ asked Smike, after a short silence. ‘That would be too severe a trial, even for your willing legs,’ said Nicholas, with a good-humoured smile. ‘No. Godalming is some thirty and odd miles from London--as I found from a map I borrowed--and I purpose to rest there. We must push on again tomorrow, for we are not rich enough to loiter. Let me relieve you of that bundle! Come!’ ‘No, no,’ rejoined Smike, falling back a few steps. ‘Don’t ask me to give it up to you.’ ‘Why not?’ asked Nicholas. ‘Let me do something for you, at least,’ said Smike. ‘You will never let me serve you as I ought. You will never know how I think, day and night, of ways to please you.’ ‘You are a foolish fellow to say it, for I know it well, and see it, or I should be a blind and senseless beast,’ rejoined Nicholas. ‘Let me ask you a question while I think of it, and there is no one by,’ he added, looking him steadily in the face. ‘Have you a good memory?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Smike, shaking his head sorrowfully. ‘I think I had once; but it’s all gone now--all gone.’ ‘Why do you think you had once?’ asked Nicholas, turning quickly upon him as though the answer in some way helped out the purport of his question. ‘Because I could remember, when I was a child,’ said Smike, ‘but that is very, very long ago, or at least it seems so. I was always confused and giddy at that place you took me from; and could never remember, and sometimes couldn’t even understand, what they said to me. I--let me see--let me see!’ ‘You are wandering now,’ said Nicholas, touching him on the |
