The Weathercock | Page 8

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 twang 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 Weathercock 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