I did not answer.
“Do you hear? And say ‘sir’ when you speak,” cried Courtenay with a brutal insolent manner that seemed to fit with his dark thin face. “I say, do you hear, boy?”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Yes, sir, you beggar,” cried Courtenay. “What was your father?”
“He don’t know,” cried Philip grinning. “Pauper boys don’t know. They’re all mixed up together, and they call ’em Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, or names of streets or places, anything. He doesn’t know what his father was. He was mixed up with a lot more.”
“I’ll make him answer,” said Courtenay. “Here, what was your father?”
“An officer and a gentleman,” I said proudly.
“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Philip, dancing about with delight, and hanging on to his brother, who laughed too. “Here’s a game—a gardener’s boy a gentleman! Oh my!”
I was sorry I had said those words, but they slipped out, and I stood there angry and mortified before my tormentors.
“I say, Court, don’t he look like a gentleman? Look at the knees of his trousers, and his fists.”