I did feel sorry for him.

There, I don't care: he can't be such a bad fellow as old Brookes wants to make out.

Brookes is an old beast! I'd tell him so for two pins." Nic's thoughts were flowing very freely, and feeling quite excited he went on: "He must have done something very bad, and he has been severely punished; then they let him come out from the gang to be an assigned servant, and he's trying hard to make up for the past, and when he gets bullied and ill-used it makes him look savage and fierce, of course.
"Well," said Nic, after a thoughtful pause, "I can keep him in his place and yet be civil to him.

I'm not going to jump on a man because he has done wrong; and I don't see why he shouldn't be forgiven--if he deserves it, of course, and--somehow, though I don't like him, I seem to like him a good deal, and that's about as big a puzzle as some of the things in mathematics, and--" This next was aloud: "Oh, murder! Needles and pins! Wasps and hornets! Oh!" Nic had jumped up, to begin dancing about, slapping his legs, shaking his trousers, pulling off his shoes, and trying hard to get rid of something that was giving him intense pain.
"It's those bees!" he cried.

"They've got up the legs of my trousers; and he said they had no stings.