"Worst of this stuff is," said Macey, "that you get your teeth stuck together. Oh, I say, Gil, what hooks! A whole dozen?"

Gilmore nodded as he opened a ring of fine silkworm gut, and began to examine the points and backs of the twelve bright blue steel hooks at the ends of the gut lengths, and the carefully-tied loops at the other.

"Where did you buy them?" continued Macey, as he gloated over the bright hookah.

No answer.

"Where did you buy them, Gil?" said Macey again.

"Cuoz--duoz--ooze."

"What!" cried Macey; and Distin and Vane both looked wonderingly at their fellow-pupil, who had made a peculiar incoherent guttural noise, faintly represented by the above words.

Then Vane began to laugh.

"What's the matter, Gil?" he said.

Gilmore gave his neck a peculiar writhe, and his jaws a wrench.

"I wish you fellows wouldn't bother," he cried. "You, Macey, ought to know better: you give a chap that stickjaw stuff of yours, and then worry him to speak. Come by post, I said. From London."

Distin gave vent to a contemptuous sniff, and it was seen that he was busily spreading tobacco on thin pieces of paper, and rolling them up into cigarettes with the nonchalant air of one used to such feats of dexterity, though, truth to tell, he fumbled over the task; and as he noticed that Vane was observing him with a quiet look of good-humoured contempt, his fingers grew hot and moist, and he nervously blundered over his task.

"Well," he said with a vicious tw.a.n.g in his tones, "what are you staring at?"

"You," replied Vane, with his hand holding open a Greek Lexicon.

"Then mind your lessons, schoolboy," retorted Distin sharply. "Did you never see a gentleman roll a cigarette before?"

"No," said Vane quietly, and then, feeling a little nettled by the other's tone, he continued, "and I can't see one now."

Distin half rose from the table, crushing a partly formed cigarette in his hand.

"Did you mean that for another insult, sir?" he cried in a loud, angry voice.

"Oh, I say, Distie," said Gilmore, rising too, and catching his arm, "don't be such a pepper-pot. Old Weatherc.o.c.k didn't mean any harm."

"Mind your own business," said Distin, fiercely wrenching his arm free.

"That is my business--to sit on you when you go off like a firework,"

said Gilmore merrily. "I say, does your father grow much ginger on his plantation?"

"I was speaking to the doctor's boy, and I'll thank you to be silent,"

cried Distin.

"Oh, I say, don't, don't, don't!" cried Macey, apostrophising all three.

"What's the good of kicking up rows about nothing! Here, Distie," he continued, holding out his box; "have some more jumble."

Distin waved the tin box away majestically, and turned to Vane.

"I said, sir, goo--gloo--goog--"

He stepped from his place to the window in a rage, for his voice had suddenly become most peculiar; and as the others saw him thrust a white finger into his mouth and tear out something which he tried to throw away but which refused to be cast off, they burst into a simultaneous roar of laughter, which increased as they saw the angry lad suck his finger, and wipe it impatiently on his handkerchief.

"Don't you give me any of your filthy stuff again, you. Macey," he cried.

"All right," said the culprit, wiping the tears out of his eyes, and taking the tin box from his pocket. "Have a bit more?"

Distin struck the tin box up furiously, sending it flying open, as it performed an arc in the air, and distributing fragments of the hard-baked saccharine sweet.

"Oh, I say!" cried Macey, hastily stooping to gather up the pieces.

"Here, help, Gil, or we shall have Syme in to find out one of them by sitting on it."

"Look here, sir," cried Distin, across the table to Vane, who sat, as last comer, between him and the door, "I said did you mean that as an insult?"

"Oh, rubbish!" replied Vane, a little warmly now; "don't talk in that manner, as if you were somebody very big, and going to fight a duel."

"I asked you, sir, if you meant that remark as an insult," cried Distin, "and you evade answering, in the meanest and most shuffling way. I was under the impression when I came down to Greythorpe it was to read with English gentlemen, and I find--"

"Never mind what you find," said Vane; "I'll tell you what you do."

"Oh, you will condescend to tell me that," sneered Distin. "Pray what do I do?"

"Don't tell him, Lee," said Gilmore; "and stop it, both of you. Mr Syme will be here directly, and we don't want him to hear us squabbling over such a piece of idiotic nonsense."

"And you call my resenting an insult of the most grave nature a piece of idiocy, do you, Mr Gilmore?"

"No, Mr Distin; but I call the beginning of this silly row a piece of idiocy."

"Of course you fellows will hang together," said Distin, with a contemptuous look. "I might have known that you were not fit to trust as a friend."

"Look here, Dis," said Gilmore, in a low, angry voice, "don't you talk to me like that."

"And pray why, sir?" said Distin, in a tone full of contempt.

"Because I'm not Vane, sir, and--"

"I say, old chaps, don't, please don't," cried Macey, earnestly. "Look here; I've got a tip from home by this morning's post, and I'll be a good feed to set all square. Come: that's enough." Then, imitating the rector's thick, unctuous voice, "Hum--ha!--silence, gentlemen, if you please."

"Silence yourself, buffoon!" retorted Distin, sharply, and poor Macey sank down in his chair, startled, or a.s.suming to be.

"No, Mr Gilmore," said Distin, haughtily, "you are not Vane Lee, you said, and--and what?"

"I'll tell you," cried the lad, with his brow lowering. "I will not sit still and let you bully me. He may not think it worth his while to hit out at a foreign-bred fellow who snaps and snarls like an angry dog, but I do; and if you speak to me again as you did just now, I'll show you how English-bred fellows behave. I'll punch your head."

"No, you will not, Gil," said Vane, half rising in his seat. "I don't want to quarrel, but if there must be one, it's mine. So look here, Distin: you've done everything you could for months past to put me out of temper."

"He--aw!--he--aw!" cried Macey, in parliamentary style.