The two always sparred when they met and loved their friendly bouts. Both were radicals; but they had arrived at their convictions by very different routes. The schoolmaster had inherited his opinions from tough, dissenting ancestors, the man of science had acquired them from Huxley and Darwin. Politics the pair rarely discussed, except at election time; for on that subject they were in rough agreement. But the two men wrangled genially over religion, the ethics of sport, even the two Caspar boys; for Mr. Trupp was the one man in Old Town who alleged a preference for the younger boy—mainly, his wife declared, because he must be "contrary."
Mr. Pigott now told the stubborn man almost with glee the story of Alf's treachery.
"What d'ye think of that now?" he asked defiantly.
"Why," grunted the Doctor, "what I should expect."
"Of course," said the sarcastic Mr. Pigott.
"He's got the faults of his physique," continued the other. "He's afraid of a thrashing because he knows it'd kill him. Self-preservation is always the first law of life."
"He's a little cur," said Mr. Pigott. "That's what your young Alf is."
"I've no doubt he is," replied the Doctor. "You would be too if you'd got that body to live in."
"I'd be ashamed," shouted the other. "I'd commit suicide offhand."
"The wonder is he's alive at all," continued Mr. Trupp, quite unmoved. "Must have some grit in him somewhere or he'd have died when he was born."