'Bosh! What's the good?' said Fulbert.
'They'll be as jolly dirty again directly,' said Lance.
'But you would be more decent company in the meantime,' said Felix.
At that moment there was a splash in his plate, a skip-jack made of the breast-bone of a chicken had alighted there with a leap.
'There's Felix's master come after him,' cried Fulbert, and Lance went off into choking laughter.
'Boys, how can you?' broke out Cherry.
'Look at Blunderbore fishing out his master!' was Fulbert's answer.
'The frog is in the bog,
And Felix is squeamish,'
chanted Lance.
'Bad rhyme, Lance,' said Felix, who could bear these things much better from the younger than the elder. Indeed, he scarcely durst notice them in Fulbert, lest he should be betrayed into violence by letting out his temper.