"What, are y' goin' south?" put in Easu.
Jack looked at him. It was impossible not to see the slack look of defeat in Easu's face. Something had defeated him, leaving him all sneering and acid and heavy. Again Jack did not answer.
"What did you say?" Easu persisted, advancing a little insolently.
"What about?"
"I asked if y' was goin' south."
"That's my business, where I'm going."
"Of course it is," said Easu with a sneer and a grin. "You don't think anyone wants to get ahead of you, do you?" He stood with a faint, sneering smile on his face, malevolent with impotence. "You'll do Percy a lot o' hurt, I'll bet. I wouldn't like to be Percy, when you turn up." And he looked with a grin at Herbert. Herbert grinned faintly in echo.
"I should think, whatever Percy is, he wouldn't want to be you," said Jack, going white at the gills with anger, but speaking with calm superiority, because he knew that enraged Easu most.
"What's that?" cried Easu, the grin flying out of his face at once, and leaving it stiff and dangerous.
"I should think Percy wouldn't want to be you, let him be what he may in himself," said Jack, in the cold, clear, English voice which he knew infuriated Easu unbearably.