"It is slightly painful; but I shall be able to walk home all right, Corp, if you let me use you as a staff." I think he was a little surprised to hear himself saying this; but, as soon as it was said, he liked it.

He was Captain Stroke playing in the Den again, after all, and playing as well as ever.

Nothing being so real to Tommy as pretence, I daresay he even began to feel his ankle hurting him.

"Gently," he begged of Corp, with a gallant smile, and clenching his teeth so that the pain should not make him cry out before the ladies.

Thus, with his lieutenant's help, did Stroke manage to reach Aaron's house, making light of his mishap, assuring them cheerily that he should be all right to-morrow, and carefully avoiding Grizel's eye, though he wanted very much to know what she thought of him (and of herself) now.
There were moments when she did not know what to think, and that always distressed Grizel, though it was a state of mind with which Tommy could keep on very friendly terms.