“Of course I do,” said Perry, looking amused at his companion’s eagerness. “We’ve got on right enough together since we have been staying at your house.”
“Got on? I should think we have,” cried Cyril. “Why, it has been no end of a treat to me for you to be at our place. I can’t get on very well with the half-Spanish chaps about here. They’re gentlemen, of course, with tremendously grand descents from Don this and Don that; but they’re not English boys, and you can’t make English boys of them.”
“Of course not.”
“Ah, you may laugh,” continued Cyril, “but would you believe it? I tried to get up a cricket club, and took no end of pains to show them the game, and they all laughed at it, and said I must be half mad. That’s being Spanish, that is! It’s no wonder their country’s left all behind.”
“Then the cricket was a failure?” said Perry.
“Failure? It ended in a fight, and I went home and burned the stumps, bats, and balls.”
“What a pity!” cried Perry.
“That’s what father said, and it did seem too bad, after he’d had the tackle brought out from England on purpose. I was sorry afterwards; but I was so jolly wild then, I couldn’t help it.”
“How came there to be a fight?” said Perry after a pause, during which he watched the frank, handsome face of his companion, who was looking at the great peak again.
“Oh, it was all about nothing. These Spanish chaps are so cocky and bumptious, and ready to take everything as being meant as an insult. Little stupid things, too, which an English boy wouldn’t notice. I was bowling one evening, and young Mariniaz was batting. Of course he’d got his bat and his wits, and he ought to have taken care of himself. I never thought of hitting him, but I sent in a shooter that would have taken off the bail on his side, and instead of blocking it, he stepped right before the wicket.”