Jenkins looked shocked. As for me, dash it, I never so wished for my monocle, don't you know!
O'Keefe's head angled a little to give me the benefit of a surreptitious wink.
"Oh, certainly," he said, his voice affecting a fine sarcasm; "if the gentleman says you're his friend—"
"He's no friend of mine," I proclaimed indignantly. "Never saw him before in my life."
Instead of being confounded, the artful old villain fell back with a great air of astonishment and dismay. By Jove, he managed to turn fairly purple.
"Wha-a-t's that?" he gasped stranglingly and clutching at the collar of his pajamas. "Say that again, Dicky."
I looked at him severely.
"Oh, I say, don't call me 'Dicky,' either," I remonstrated quietly. "It's a name I only like to hear my intimate friends use."
He kind of caught the back of a chair and glared wildly at me from under his bushy wintry eyebrows. The beefy rolls of his lower jaw actually trembled.
"Don't you—haven't you always classed me as that, Dic—er—Lightnut?" he sort of whispered.