“To be sure. I wonder what has become of the old boy. Roaming round the country somewhere, I suppose. What a rum old chap he was, with his hat in one hand, yellow silk handkerchief in the other, and his shiny bald head. Yes, I wonder where he is.”
“Ramballing,” cried Singh, with a peculiar smile on his countenance; and then he started in wonder, for Glyn made a dash at him, caught him by the wrist, and made believe to feel his pulse in the most solemn manner.
“What are you doing that for?” cried Singh.
“Wait a moment,” replied Glyn.—“No. Beating quite steadily. Skin feels cool and moist.”
“Why, of course,” said Singh. “What do you mean?”
“I thought you must be ill to burst out with a bad joke like that.”
“Oh, stuff!” cried Singh impatiently. “It’s just as good as yours. Yes,” he continued thoughtfully, “it is very nice here; but I should like another ride through the old jungle; and this old row of elm-trees—pah! how different.”
The two lads remained very thoughtful as they walked slowly across the cricket-field, mentally seeing the wild forest of the East with its strange palms that run from tree to tree, rising up or growing down, here forming festoons, there tangling and matting the lower growth together, and always beautiful whenever seen.
Strange musings for a couple of schoolboys, who never once connected these objects of their thoughts with the stringent master’s cane—the rattan or properly rotan-cane or climbing-palm.
They stopped at last in their favourite place beneath the elms, and stood with their hands in their pockets and their shoulders against the park-palings—the patch that looked newish, but which was gradually growing grey under the influence of the weather that was oxidising the new nails and sending a ruddy stain through the wood.