"Oh, it's rotten beating one another when people are looking on," Percival replies. "I vote for lemonade as well, don't you?"
It is the spirit between them that had its first evidence on the day when the visit was made to Mr. Hannaford to purchase the little black 'orse. Then Rollo hung back while Percival jumped to ride; then Percival brought him forward, encouraging him, to taste the fun. So now, as the years sunder their natures more sharply, and as affection more strongly bridges the gulf, the more sharply does the one lead, the other follow; the more naturally does the one support, the other rely.
Everybody notices it: Aunt Maggie, who only smiles; Lady Burdon, who says: "Rollo, Percival's a regular little father to you, it seems to me. Don't let him rule you, you know. Remember what you are, Rollo mine." Even Egbert Hunt notices it. Mr. Hunt is still attached to Rollo's person. Sick yedaches trouble him less frequently; but his hatred of tyrangs has deepened with the increasing tenure of his servitude. He spends less of his wages on vegules; much of it on socialistic literature of an inflammatory nature; but he never forgets the sympathy of Percival in the vegule days, and he is strongly joined with all those who, meeting the boy, have a note stirred by his sunny nature.
"Always does me good to see you," Mr. Hunt says one day. "Something about you. He'll never be a slave who works for you."
"Well, who's going to work for me?" Percival inquires.
"The point!" says Mr. Hunt with impressive gloom. "The very point." He fumbles in his pocket and produces thumbed papers, just as he fumbled and produced vegules at an earlier day. "It's in the lowlier"—he consults a paper—"in the lowlier strata that you find the men a man can follow, but the men that can't lead owing to the heel of the tyrang. It's the Bloodsuckers we got to serve." He indicates the paper: "Bloodsuckers, they call 'em here."
"Silly rot," says Percival.
"Ah, you're young," Mr. Hunt returns. "You're young. You'll learn different when they begin to sap your blood for you. You're a higher strata than me, Master Percival. Benificent influence of education, you've had. But you're under the Bloodsuckers. Squeeze you out like an orindge, they will, and throw yer away. Me one day, you another." He indicated the paper again. "There's a strong bit here called 'Squeezed Orindges.' Makes yer boil."
"I'm boiling already," says Percival. "It's a jolly hot day. If you don't like being what you are, I wonder you don't be something else."
"No good," Mr. Hunt tells him. "Out of one tyrang's heel and under another. We've got to suffer and endure, us orindges, until the day when they are swept away like chaff before the wind."