"Nellie, when are you coming over here? I shall bag these sweets if you don't buck up." He would then seize a huge glass jar of peppermints, and roll it along the zinc counter.
"Oh, Mr Hazlitt, do leave that alone," the wretched Nellie would implore. But it was no use. When there was a big crowd waiting to be served, the Hazlitt brethren would take knives and beat on the zinc counter, shouting out: "Nellie, come here!" They were a thoroughly objectionable pair. Whenever Mansell saw them, he kicked them hard, and they got rather frightened of the School House after a bit.
It is not to be thought, however, that the behaviour of the School House was exemplary. Mansell usually kicked up an almighty row, but he left "Nellie" alone. He was not going to lower himself to the Hazlitt level.
It is an amazing thing that the half-blood very rarely gets into a row; and yet he always talks as if expulsion hung over his head. Probably he thinks it draws attention to himself. Mansell would always enter the shop in exactly the same way; he banged his books on the counter and, sighting Hunter, fired off at once.
"I say, look here, give me a con. I am in the hell of a hole. I prepared the wrong stuff for old Claremont, and the man's getting awfully sick with me; he may report me to the Chief. Do help me out!"
"Sorry, old cock," said Hunter, "but I specialise in stinks!"
"Oh, do you! Well, I suppose I shall have to chance it; that's all. He may not shove me on."
The small boys thought Mansell's daring very fine. But strangely enough, although he was always in a state of fearful agitation, he had so far singularly managed to avoid getting reported. But still it kept up appearances to talk a lot.
Gordon, of course, had to be fairly quiet in the tuck-shop. He was not yet known among the school in general; and it was only in Buller's that small boys gave tongue in the tuck-shop. But then Buller's were, in their own opinion, to the rest of the School as Rome was to Italy. Fernhurst was merely a province of Buller's. They kept this view to themselves, however. "The Bull" would have dealt very summarily with such assumptions.
And so, when Lovelace and Tester and Mansell were there Gordon was generally to be found contributing his share to the general disorder, but when alone, he sat quite quietly with Collins and Foster. He rather longed for the day when he could start a row all on his own. A strange ambition for any candidate for immortality!