“Oh, I say, are you hurt, ole gurl?” came in anxious, if rather obvious, inquiry from the surrounding field.
“Got her bang on the jaw!”
“What awful rot, poor wretch.”
They crowded round Olive, who was choking and gulping, her mouth streaming with blood, but undauntedly gasping:
“It’s all right, don’t fuss, I tell you, Bee, it’s all right. I’ll be all right in a sec. I never dreamt she was going to hit out like that. I ought to have caught it.”
“Comes of having a mouth like a pound of liver splits,” said Bob, quite unconsciously making use of the strain of facetious personal incivility always used by him to any intimate, and all the while solicitously patting his sister on the back.
“Oh, Olive, I’m so sorry,” said Lydia, far more acutely aware than anyone else was likely to be of the inadequacy of the time-worn formula.
“Don’t be an ass,” returned Olive crisply. “Lend me a nose wipe if you want to do something useful. Mine’s soaked.”
Such of the assembly as were possessed of pocket-handkerchiefs willingly sacrificed them, although the number contributed proved utterly inadequate to the amount of blood lost by Olive, still determinedly making light of her injuries.
“Let’s have a look and see if your teeth are all out, old gurl,” urged Beatrice.