“What!” said the boy, flushing up to the temples, as he took a step toward the speaker, and with flashing eyes looked him up and down. “Well, if you come to that, so do you, with your broad skirts, salt-box pockets, lace, and tied-up hair. See what thin legs you’ve got too!”
“You insolent— No, I didn’t mean that;” and an angry look gave place to a smile. “Lay your feathers down, Master Frank Gowan, and don’t draw Master Frank Gowan, and don’t draw your skewer; that’s high treason in the King’s Palace. You mustn’t laugh here when you’re on duty. If there’s any fighting to be done, they call in the guard; and if any one wants to quarrel, he must go somewhere else.”
“I don’t want to quarrel,” said the boy, rather sulkily. “You did a moment ago, for all your hackles were sticking up like a gamecock’s.”
“Well, I don’t now, Drew,” said the boy, smiling frankly; “but the place is all so stiff and formal and dull, and I can’t help wanting to be back in the country. I used to think one was tied down there at the school, but that was free liberty to this.”
“Oh, you young barbarian! School and the country! Right enough for boys.”
“Well, we’re boys.”
The other coughed slightly, took a measured pace or two right and left, and gave a furtive glance at his handsome, effeminate face and slight form in the glass. Then he said, rather haughtily:
“You are, of course; but I should have thought that you might have begun to look upon me as a man.”
“Oh, I will, if you like,” said the other, smiling,—“a very young one, though. Of course you’re ever so much older than I am. But there, I’m going to try and like it; and I like you, Forbes, for being so good to me. I’m not such a fool as not to know that I’m a sort of un-licked cub, and you will go on telling me what I ought, to do and what I oughtn’t. I can play games as well as most fellows my age; but all this stiff, starchy court etiquette sickens me.”
“Yes,” said his companion, with a look of disgust on his face; “miserable, clumsy Dutch etiquette. As different from the grand, graceful style of the old régime and of Saint Germains as chalk is from cheese.”