"No, thank you, I haven't begun it yet," said Arthur. "One of the last talks I had with Papa was about smoking, and I promised him I would not begin tobacco until I was twenty at least. He told me he believed it had done him a great deal of harm. He began the habit early by way of killing time and—"
"Yes, that's just it. What has a fellow got to do in a dull hole like this? The Mater says seventeen is too early to begin the weed, but I tell her she knows nothing about it." Adrian had broken in to say this while he was getting a match to light his cigarette.
"When are you going to Oxford, old fellow?" asked Arthur. "Of course there is no chance for me now," he added.
"Beastly nuisance, isn't it?" said Adrian, puffing away at his cigarette, "I thought we might have gone together, and had some good fun and seen something of life."
"But you are going, aren't you?" said Arthur.
His companion lazily blew out a few rings of smoke, and then said slowly, "Yes, I expect I shall when the Mater will shell out enough to do the thing properly. I'm not going to live there like a hermit, and I've told her so. Lady Mary Murray's son is not going to play second fiddle to anybody at Oxford, and at present we can't agree as to what would be a fair allowance for expenses over and above actual necessities. What should she know about it? She was brought up in her father's tumble-down Irish castle, where they lived on potatoes and milk half the year, and ran wild among the cotters' children, and when they were in Dublin it wasn't much better."
"But I say, they grew a fine race of boys and girls on potatoes and milk," said Arthur, giving the young fellow a dig in the side, as he used to do in the old days when reminding him of his diminutive stature.
Arthur was nearly a head taller than his cousin, although he was two years younger, while Lady Mary, his mother, was nearly six feet in height, and as commanding in her manner as a grenadier.
"Shut up that!" said Adrian irritably. "We are getting beyond mere boys now, and I mean to let people know it too." And he drew himself up to the full height of all his inches.
"I say, it was a pretty good dinner they gave us to-night," he said the next minute.