Cousin Sol was lounging in a rocking-chair with the Times before him, gazing moodily over the top of it into the fire. I ranged up alongside and poured in my broadside.
“We seem to have given you some offence, Mr. Barker,” I remarked, with lofty courtesy.
“What do you mean, Nell?” asked my cousin, looking up at me in surprise. He had a very curious way of looking at me, had cousin Sol.
“You appear to have dropped our acquaintance,” I remarked; and then suddenly descending from my heroics, “You are stupid, Sol! What’s been the matter with you?”
“Nothing, Nell. At least, nothing of any consequence. You know my medical examination is in two months, and I am reading for it.”
“Oh,” said I, in a bristle of indignation, “if that’s it, there’s no more to be said. Of course, if you prefer bones to your female relations, it’s all right. There are young men who would rather make themselves agreeable than mope in corners and learn how to prod people with knives.” With which epitome of the noble science of surgery, I proceeded to straighten some refractory antimacassars with unnecessary violence.
I could see Sol looking with an amused smile at the angry little blue-eyed figure in front of him. “Don’t blow me up, Nell,” he said; “I have been plucked once, you know. Besides,” looking grave, “you’ll have amusement enough when this—what is his name?—Lieutenant Hawthorne comes.”
“Jack won’t go and associate with mummies and skeletons, at any rate,” I remarked.
“Do you always call him Jack?” asked the student.
“Of course I do, John sounds so stiff.”