"You mistake me, Clunie, you do——"
"You fool!" said he; "take that, and get out further along the yard."
And he gave my leg another little stab, that brought the blood through my flannels like spilled ink. I obeyed him in order to put myself beyond his reach. This, however, was not his meaning at all. He edged after me as coolly as though we were dangling our legs over the side of a berth.
"I've got a crow to pluck with you," he went on, "and you know well enough what it is."
"Those verses?" said I, holding on with all ten fingers; for we were rolling as much as ever; and now the black sea rose under us on one side, and now on the other; but Clunie had straddled the spar, and he rode it like a rocking-horse, without holding on at all.
"Those verses," he repeated. "At least, that's one of them. I should have said there was a brace of crows."
"Well, as to the verses," said I, "you were hardly a loser. Our magazine, as you may know, died a natural death the very next week."
"Of course it did," said Clunie, with an air of satisfaction which I found encouraging. "You refused my poem, so, of course, the thing fizzled out. What else could you expect? But I tell you I have a second bone to pick with you. And you'll find it the worst of the two—for you!"
"I wonder what that is," said I, in a mystified tone, thinking to humour him still more.
"I'll tell you," said he. "Just shunt a bit further along the yard."