“Just as if we weren’t sure to find out the truth. Calls him a squatter. Yes; the government made him squat pretty quickly.”
There was another laugh as the boys wandered on along the edge of the great common, where the quickset hedge divided it from the cultivated land, high above which a lark was circling and singing with all its might.
“I want to know why the doctor lets him stop amongst gentlemen’s sons.”
“I know, Bry Green,” said a mischievous-looking, dark-eyed boy; “it’s because his father pays.”
“He wouldn’t be here long if his father didn’t,” said Green laughingly.
“Unless he supplied the doctor with sugar and soap and candles and soda and blue.”
There was a roar of laughter once more, in which Dominic Braydon joined, and Green turned so suddenly on the last speaker that the young thrushes were nearly jerked out of the nest.
“Do you want me to give you a wipe on the mouth, Tomlins?” cried the boy angrily.
“Oh no, sir; please don’t, sir,” was the reply, with a display of mock horror and dread; “only you said gentlemen’s sons, sir,—and I thought what a pity it was Nic Braydon’s father wasn’t a grocer.”
“My father’s a wholesale dealer in the City,” said Green loftily; “and it’s only as a favour that he lets old Dunham have things from his warehouse at trade price.”