"And serve him right," put in Loftus, answering the semi-threat of Sir Simon. "Transportation for seven years would be just the thing Dick deserves. What right had the young idiot to meddle with my pistols?" "What right had you to have pistols to be meddled with?" cried Sir Simon, retorting on Bertie. "And to keep 'em loaded? And to put 'em where Dick could get to them? I'd transport _you_ for fourteen." Mr. Loftus did not like the tables being turned on him. He drew his head up with a jerk. "And you the senior, save one, of the school, who might have been expected to be a pattern to the rest!" added Sir Simon, mercilessly. "You'd not have done it would you Gall?" The senior boy, quietly looking on, lifted his eyes at being addressed. "I don't think I should, Sir Simon." It was an inoffensive answer enough, in regard to words; but the quiet tone of condemnation, the half compassionate smile that accompanied it, angered Loftus out of his pride and his prudence. "It's not likely he would. Pistols would be of no use to him. What do those city tradespeople want with pistols?" The insolent retort was not lost on Sir Simon, for it gave him an opportunity that he was ever ready to seize upon; ever, it may be said, watching for—that of putting down the lofty notions of his otherwise favourite nephew. "Those City tradespeople," he echoed, making a circular sweep with his stick, as if to challenge the attention of the crowd. "Hark at him! Hold your tongue, Gall; I'll talk. Has he changed ranks with Talbot, do you know, boys, and become a lord? City people! I'm his uncle; but he ignores that. I wasn't in the City; never aspired to it; I was only in Bermondsey; a tanner. A tanner, boys, as some of your fathers could tell you; Orville & Tubbs it was. Tubbs is there, tanning still; Tubbs & Sons; and a good snug business they've got. _I_ wasn't born with a fortune in the bank, as some folks are; I had to make my way by hard work, and with very little education, and I did it. I had no Orville College to learn Latin and Greek and politeness at; though they do tell me I'm related to its founder. Perhaps I am; but it's only a sixteenth cousin, boys." A shout of laughter: the boys' satisfaction had grown irrepressible. Sir Simon laughed with them.