“Well, he was set next Captain Gwyeth, and I was the other side, so I enjoyed their discourse. It seems the parson was much attracted by you.” Strangwayes tipped his head on one side while he scraped the razor along his cheek, and spoke disjointedly. “Something, either the way you thrust up that square chin of yours, or your pretty habit of not speaking to your elders unless they address you,—except in my case, for you constantly fail in respect to me,—well, you much pleased the gentleman, so he asked the captain your name. And the captain told him. ‘Your son, sir?’ says he, and falls to congratulating the captain on your fine bearing and—nay, I’ll spare you. But I’m thinking Captain Gwyeth did not relish his supper.” There was an instant’s pause while Strangwayes, with his head thrown back, shaved warily beneath his chin; then he laid down the razor and faced about. “Will you believe it, Hugh?” he said, in something between jest and seriousness, “I’m thinking if you should go very humbly, hat in hand, to the captain and say, ‘Sir, I bore myself very frowardly and peevishly toward you, but now I am ready to submit me,’ I’m thinking he would rate you soundly and—henceforth maintain you himself.” “Doubtless he will,—when I go unto him so,” Hugh said shortly. Strangwayes laughed a little, then fell to talking of indifferent matters, while he put on his coat and fastened his belt. “I saw Phil Bellasis in the city yesterday,” he ended. “Perhaps to even matters he’s looking for Captain Gwyeth now.” “I should think one lesson would suffice for him,” Hugh replied; and then, as Dick tramped away, turned his attention again to Gervase Markham. But reading or any serious pursuit was out of the question on those blue spring days in the midst of winter. There was near a week of such weather, in which poor Gervase was left to gather dust on the chimney-piece, and Monsieur de Sévérac expostulated at Hugh’s inattention. The boy’s heart was idling out in the open air, and his body must needs follow. He galloped Bayard round about the city till he knew the roads to weariness, and then, descending upon George Allestree, he dragged him out to tramp in the slushy remnants of the last snow. “We’ll even up scores now,” Allestree said one afternoon. “You’ve haled me through the mire, which I loathe, and now I’ll make you sup in the city with me, which I know you abhor.” So it was that in the evening Hugh found himself blinking sleepily in a brightly lighted room above a city ordinary, and roused up only at the click of the dice. At one of the small tables Allestree and Lieutenant Seymour, who had joined them, were deep in play, so Hugh got up and stood watching them. In spite of all urgings he did not play himself; the forty-five shillings he brought from Edgehill had lasted him well for spending money, but he had none to squander on the dice.