Sid Henshaw carries on making monkey faces, but George barely notices. Sid Henshaw is just a stupid farm boy who smells of cows and probably cannot even spell the word.

One day, Henshaw rushes at George in the yard, barges him with his shoulder, and as George is recovering himself, pulls off his bow tie and runs away. George hears laughter. Back in the classroom, Mr Bostock asks where his tie has got to.

This presents George with a problem. He knows it is wrong to get a schoolfellow into trouble. But he knows it is worse to tell lies. His father is quite clear about this. Once you start telling lies you are led into the paths of sin and nothing will stop you until the hangman slips a noose around your neck. No one has said as much, but this is what George has understood. So he cannot lie to Mr Bostock. He looks for a way out – which is perhaps bad enough anyway, the start of a lie – and then he simply answers the question.

'Sid Henshaw knocked me and took it.'

Mr Bostock leads Henshaw out by the hair, beats him until he howls, comes back with George's tie, and gives the class a lecture about theft. After school, Wallie Sharp stands in George's path and as he steps round him says, 'You're not a right sort.'

George rules out Wallie Sharp as a possible friend.

He rarely feels the lack of what he does not have. The family takes no part in local society, but George cannot imagine what this might involve, let alone what the reason for their unwillingness, or failure, might be. He himself never goes to other boys' houses, so cannot judge how things are conducted elsewhere.