“I don’t know; I never asked them. Are yours?” This last question was so perfectly quiet and unexpected, and Jones was so evidently discomfited by it, that the rest burst into a roar of laughter, and Henderson said, “You’ve caught a tartar, Jones. You can’t drop salt on this bird’s tail. You had better return to Plumber, or Saint George and the dragon. Here, my noble Viscount, what do you think of your coeval? Is he as common as the rest of us?”
“I don’t think anything about him, if you mean me by Viscount,” said Tracy peevishly, beginning at last to understand that they had been making a fool of him.
“Quite right, Saint George; he’s beneath your notice.” Tracy ran his hand through his scented hair, as if he rather Implied that he was; and being mortified at the contrast between his own credulous vanity and Walter’s manly simplicity, and anxious if possible to regain his position, he said angrily to Walter, “What are you looking at me for?”
Not wishing to be rude, Walter turned away, while someone observed, “A cat may look at a king.”
“Ay, a cat at a king, I grant you,” answered Henderson; “but not a mere son of Eve at any Howard Tracy.”
“You are laughing at me,” said Tracy to Walter again, in a still angrier tone, seeing Walter smile at Henderson’s remark.
“I’ve not the slightest wish to laugh at you,” said Walter.
“Yes he has. Shy this at him,” said Jones, putting a great bit of orange peel into Tracy’s hand.
Tracy threw it at Walter, and he without hesitation picked it up, and flung it back in Tracy’s face.
“A fight! a fight!” shouted the mischief-making group, as Tracy made a blind blow at Walter, which his antagonist easily parried.