of course i understood, and the little wretch looked at me with a nasty sort of satisfaction. i know him; you may depend upon it he went and told mother too, for the pleasure of wounding her. and why doesn’t he die, i should like to know? he undertook to die within three weeks, and here he is getting fatter. his cough is better, too. it was only yesterday that he said that was the second day he hadn’t coughed blood."