"Huh! Think you're some smart, don't you?" he sneered, hitching his
trousers band. "Now, look here"--he leveled his finger--"you're a guest
here and I know I oughtn't to do it, and I _hate_ it for Jack's sake,
but I'm feeling I'll just _have_ to give you another trimming this
lovely morning!" He chuckled, rolling his lips and spreading them till I
could see every tooth. He moved toward me leisurely, slipping up his
sleeves. "What you got last night, sonny, was for your own sake, but
_this_ time it's going to be for Frances'--you _fishworm_!"
"Guess we'll leave Miss Frances out of it, don't you know," I
remonstrated. _Dash_ the fellow's impudence! Then, remembering I was
wearing a coat of dark cheviot that was the very devil for showing every
speck of dust, I slipped out of it and looked about for somewhere to
hang it. Not a dashed place, of course; not a thing, you know, except
nails here and there in the wooden uprights of the pergola, and of
course _nails_ wouldn't do to hang a coat on. So I just folded the jolly
thing carefully--very carefully, just as I had seen Jenkins do--and then
I held it on my arm.
The chap had been shifting about me in a curve, clucking his tongue
contemptuously and muttering, and getting more jolly red-eyed and
abusive every minute.
"Be a man!" he snarled. "You blame tailor's dummy, be a _man_!" And he
struck his chest a blow to show me what he meant.
And just then I remembered to smooth my hair-part.
"Oh, _you_--" With a growl like a bear, he swept both his hands to his
head and whirled them through his great yellow pile, leaving each hair
standing on end like the quills on the fretful what's-its-name. Then he
danced toward me, pausing irregularly to double over with a chuckle.
"Oh, this is _too_ good!" he yelped. "But I can't help it; I jest can't
refuse the money, Lizzie! I know they'll send me away for this,
but--Oh, mamma!"
And over he'd double again.
Oddest thing, isn't it, how your jolly active mind _will_ wander at the
rummest times; and I had a thought then of how, when I was a delicate
boy, bully old Doctor Dake and Doctor Madden had prescribed a
punching-bag, and later boxing-gloves. And I thought with a pang of what
ripping times the governor and I had, scrapping, and of what knocks he
gradually began to give me until he forced me to learn to come back
harder. Jove, what corking hours we had! And then when Chugsey, the
retired English light-weight champion, came to butler--_oh_, what
smashing three-handed rounds we used to have! Bully old governor, who
was never so busy on his sermons but what he could take a walk or a ride
with me; or talk with me, or _fight_ with me! Why, he--
By Jove, my dashed monocle got so cloudy of a sudden, I almost missed
the chauffeur's move--_almost_, don't you know!
And then--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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