"Fool, or not," said Gus, becoming more angry every moment as he thought of his wrongs, "I'm not an underbred loafer who cleans a fellow out of his cash and then rounds on him because he can't pay his way. Why, a Whitechapel guttersnipe——"
"Can't appreciate the allusion," said Jim; "I've never been to Whitechapel. But anyhow, Todd, there's the door. I think you had really better go."
"Not till I've said you're the biggest bounder in St. Amory's."
"Now you've said it you really must go, or I'll throw you out!"
Gus was too taken up with his own passion to notice that Cotton was also at about the limit of his patience, and that Jim's lips had set into a grim and ugly sneer. Todd was furiously trying to find some clinching expression which would quite define Jim's conduct, when that gentleman took one stride forward and caught him by the collar. The grip, the very touch of Cotton's fingers maddened Gus beyond all bearing. His anger broke loose from all control; he wrenched himself out of Cotton's grasp and passionately struck him on the mouth.
Cotton turned grey with passion as bitter as Todd's and repaid Gus's blow with interest. Gus dropped to the floor, bleeding villainously. Cotton thereupon jerked him to his feet, and threw him out of the room.
Gus picked himself up from the corridor floor and went to his own room, his face as white as a sheet and his heart as black as ink. What Gus suffered from his passion, his shame, his hatred, and the pain of his old friend's blow, for the next few hours words will not tell. He attended morning school, his head in a whirl of thought. Cotton was there too, and, could looks have killed, Jim Cotton would not have been in the land of the living for very long. When Merishall went, Gus waited until all the form had filed out, and, still dizzy and sick, he wearily followed suit and turned in at his own door. As Gus came into the room some one rose up and faced round to meet him, and Todd found himself once more face to face with Cotton.
Now, the blow which had tumbled down Gus so heartily had, so to speak, tumbled down the striker in his own mind just as thoroughly. Jim Cotton's mind was not a subtle one, but the minute after he had floored Gus and shut the door on him, his better mind told him distinctly that he was a cad. Why? Because when he struck Gus the feeling was as though he had struck a cripple. Gus had doubled up under the weight of his hand as though he had been a leaf. Cotton dimly felt that for a fellow of his build and weight to let Gus have the full benefit of both was not fair. "That is how it must feel, I suppose, to strike a girl. My fist seems unclean," he said, in huge disgust. "I'd give Todd his three sovs. back if I could recall that blow. I wish I'd left the fool alone, and anyhow, it's my opinion I don't shine much in our little squabble. Todd has been playing the man since his Perry cropper, and I've been playing the cad just because he was once useful to me and I did not want to let him go." Cotton devoted the next few hours to a little honest unselfish thinking, and the result was that he came pretty near to despising himself. "I'll go and apologize to Gus, and if he shies the poker at my head I'm hanged if I dodge it."
That is why Gus was received in his own room by the fellow who had so lately knocked him down. Gus stared at Jim, his swollen lip trembling with anger and his eyes blazing with indignation.
"I say, Gus, old man, I am an utter out-and-out cad, and I've come to apologize."