“I’ll overtake you fellows. I think I’ve got--I’ve got a bit of a sunstroke or something. It’ll pass off, no doubt.”
“Better not smoke any more,” said Steggles.
“It isn’t that, but I won’t, all the same. I’ll just dodge through that hole in the hedge and find some wild strawberries or hazel-nuts, or something.”
Seeing it was a frosty day in December Nubby’s statements looked wild. But he went. There was a hole in the hedge, with tree-roots trailing across it, and Nubbs crawled shakily through, like a wounded rabbit, into a place where a board was stuck up saying that people would be prosecuted according to law if they went there. But he didn’t seem to care, though it wasn’t a thing he would have done in cold blood. I saw Mathers grow uneasy in his mind.
“Wasn’t the pipe--eh?”
“No, no. This tobacco--why, a child could smoke it,” said Steggles. “You know what Nubbs is. It’s only an excuse to turn. He hates football and hates walking.”
We kept on again, and I began to feel a slight perspiration on my forehead and a weird sort of feeling everywhere. I had smoked about half the pipe.
“I sha’n’t go on with this now because of the match,” I said, hastily knocking out the remaining tobacco and handing his loathsome little clay back to Steggles.
“Why!” he said, “blessed if you haven’t gone the same color as Nubbs did! Don’t say you’ve got a sunstroke too?”
There was something in the voice of Steggles I didn’t much like, but I hardly felt equal to answering him then.