"More—of that!"—viciously—and thwack his knuckles struck against the iron back of the jolly bench. For I wasn't there, don't you know.
"Huh! Think you're some smart, don't you?" he sneered, hitching his trousers band. "Now, look here"—he leveled his finger—"you're a guest here and I know I oughtn't to do it, and I hate it for Jack's sake, but I'm feeling I'll just have to give you another trimming this lovely morning!" He chuckled, rolling his lips and spreading them till I could see every tooth. He moved toward me leisurely, slipping up his sleeves. "What you got last night, sonny, was for your own sake, but this time it's going to be for Frances'—you fishworm!"
"Guess we'll leave Miss Frances out of it, don't you know," I remonstrated. Dash the fellow's impudence! Then, remembering I was wearing a coat of dark cheviot that was the very devil for showing every speck of dust, I slipped out of it and looked about for somewhere to hang it. Not a dashed place, of course; not a thing, you know, except nails here and there in the wooden uprights of the pergola, and of course nails wouldn't do to hang a coat on. So I just folded the jolly thing carefully—very carefully, just as I had seen Jenkins do—and then I held it on my arm.
The chap had been shifting about me in a curve, clucking his tongue contemptuously and muttering, and getting more jolly red-eyed and abusive every minute.
"Be a man!" he snarled. "You blame tailor's dummy, be a man!" And he struck his chest a blow to show me what he meant.
And just then I remembered to smooth my hair-part.
"Oh, you—" With a growl like a bear, he swept both his hands to his head and whirled them through his great yellow pile, leaving each hair standing on end like the quills on the fretful what's-its-name. Then he danced toward me, pausing irregularly to double over with a chuckle.
"Oh, this is too good!" he yelped. "But I can't help it; I jest can't refuse the money, Lizzie! I know they'll send me away for this, but—Oh, mamma!"
And over he'd double again.
Oddest thing, isn't it, how your jolly active mind will wander at the rummest times; and I had a thought then of how, when I was a delicate boy, bully old Doctor Dake and Doctor Madden had prescribed a punching-bag, and later boxing-gloves. And I thought with a pang of what ripping times the governor and I had, scrapping, and of what knocks he gradually began to give me until he forced me to learn to come back harder. Jove, what corking hours we had! And then when Chugsey, the retired English light-weight champion, came to butler—oh, what smashing three-handed rounds we used to have! Bully old governor, who was never so busy on his sermons but what he could take a walk or a ride with me; or talk with me, or fight with me! Why, he—