“Wrong,” said Vane quietly, “I haven’t eaten them yet.”
“Then three cheers for the tailors; there’s a chance for them yet,” cried Macey.
“Why didn’t you eat them?” asked Gilmore. “Afraid?”
“I don’t think so. They’ll be ready by dinner time, will you come?”
Grimaces followed, as Vane quietly opened his books, and glanced round the rector’s room with its handsome book-cases all well filled, chimney-piece ornamented with classic looking bronzes; and the whole place with its subdued lights and heavily curtained windows suggestive of repose for the mind and uninterrupted thought and study.
Books and newly-written papers lay on the table, ready for application, but the rector’s pupils did not seem to care about work in their tutor’s absence, for Macey, who was in the act of handing round a tin box when Vane entered, now passed it on to the latter.
“Lay hold, old chap,” he said. Vane opened it, and took out a piece of crisp dark brown stickiness generally known as “jumble,” and transferred it to his mouth, while four lower jaws were now seen at work, giving the pupils the aspect of being members of that portion of the quadrupedal animal kingdom known as ruminants.
“Worst of this stuff is,” said Macey, “that you get your teeth stuck together. Oh, I say, Gil, what hooks! A whole dozen?”
Gilmore nodded as he opened a ring of fine silkworm gut, and began to examine the points and backs of the twelve bright blue steel hooks at the ends of the gut lengths, and the carefully-tied loops at the other.
“Where did you buy them?” continued Macey, as he gloated over the bright hookah.