“Shy!” he almost shouted. “Jervis shy? Ha, ha, ha!”
“Well, he is with ladies.”
“Oh, you may call it by whatever name you please. I call it fastidiousness. At any rate he is not shy with men. No fear! Only last night at the club some cad made a caddish remark, and it was not our hoary secretary who took it up and went for him, or any of the old chaps, but Jervis. By George, he gave him pepper. Went slap down his throat, spurs and all. A man’s man you know, and popular. He can sing a good song, make a rattling good speech, and is as active as a cat; you should see him take a run, and jump standing on the billiard-room chimney-piece.”
“What, Jervis? My Jervis?” in a tone of affected horror.
“Ahem! Well, I am not so sure of his being your Jervis,” drawled Mr. Skeggs.
“No; and I am positively certain that he is not, in the sense you mean. I must confess that I should like to study him.”
“Would you?” sarcastically. “You will not find him easy to classify or to fit into any of the usual pigeon-holes; he is a fellow who has a singular gift of self-control—consumes his own smoke, you know.”
“Why you have been unbending your great mind and studying him yourself! What do you make him out to be?”
“I make him out to be a curiosity—a mixture of an Arcadian shepherd, a London swell, and the rich young man in the Bible.”
“You overwhelm me completely, especially by your last simile. Why the rich young man in the Bible?”