“You must be a rare snob not to know a gentleman when you see him,” said Agincourt, with an insolent defiance in his look.
“Perhaps I'd be a better judge if I saw him after a good washing,” said Heathcote, who, with one hasty glance at the river, now turned a fierce eye on the youth.
Agincourt's gun-room experiences had not taught him to decline an offered battle, and he threw off his cap to show that he was ready and willing to accept the challenge, when suddenly Layton sprang between them, crying out, “What's the meaning of all this?”
“The meaning is, that your young friend there has taken the liberty, first, to smash my fishing-gear, and then to be very insolent to me, and that I had very serious intentions of sending him to look for the one and pay forfeit for the other.”
“Yes, I broke his rod, and I 'll pay for it, or, if he's a gentleman, I'll beg his pardon, or fight him,” said the boy, in a tone of ill-repressed anger.
“When there is an evident mistake somewhere,” said Layton, gently, “it only needs a moment of forbearance to set it right.”
“Here's how it all happened,” broke in the boy, eagerly. And in a few words he related his chance arrival at the spot, how he had seen the rod in what he deemed imminent danger, and how with the best intentions he had interfered to save it.
“I beg you to accept all my excuses for what I have said to you,” said Heathcote, with a frank and manly courtesy. “I am quite ashamed of my ill-temper, and hope you'll forgive it.”
“To be sure I will. But what about the rod,—you can't easily get such another in these parts?”
The boy looked eagerly at Layton as he spoke. Layton as quickly gave an admonitory glance of caution, and the youth's instinctive good breeding understood it.