‘Well, to tip over as a coach wheel is the last thing I should have expected of Mr. White,’ said Aunt Jane, misunderstanding on purpose.
‘A crown piece then,’ growled Fergus; ‘and of course he thought it would be a sovereign, and so he can’t pay me my two ten—shillings, I mean, that I lent him, and so I can’t get the lovely ammonite I saw at Nott’s.’
‘How could you be so silly as to lend him any money?’
‘I didn’t want to; but he said he would treat us all round if I wouldn’t be mean, and after all I only got half a goody, with all the liqueur out of it.’
‘It served you right,’ said Gillian. ‘I doubt whether you would see the two shillings again, even if he had the sovereign.’
‘He faithfully promised I should,’ said Fergus, whose allegiance was only half broken. ‘And old White is a beast, and no mistake. He was perfectly savage to Stebbing’s major, and he said he wouldn’t be under him, at no price.’
‘Perhaps Mr. White might say the same,’ put in Aunt Ada.
‘He is a downright old screw and a bear, I tell you,’ persisted Fergus. ‘He jawed Frank Stebbing like a pickpocket for just having a cigar in the quarry.’
‘Close to the blasting powder, eh?’ said Miss Mohun.
‘And he is boring and worrying them all out of their lives over the books,’ added Fergus. ‘Poking his nose into everything, so that Stebbing says his governor vows he can’t stand it, and shall cut the concern it the old brute does not take himself off to Italy before long.’