“I’ll pay you for it, you miserable cad!”
“Don’t call names, Distie,” said the lad coolly. “Those who play at bowls must expect rubbers. Let him go, boys; he won’t hurt me.”
It was a mere form that holding; but as the detaining pair loosened their hold, Lance Distin gave himself a violent wrench, as if he were wresting himself free, and then coloured to the roots of his hair, as he saw the laugh in his adversary’s eyes.
“Distie’s got no end of Trinidad sun in him yet.—What a passionate fellow you are, Cocoa. I say, these are good, really. Come home with me and have breakfast.”
Lance Distin, son of a wealthy planter in the West Indies, turned away scornfully, and the others laughed.
“Likely,” said Fred Gilmore, showing his white teeth. “Why, I wouldn’t poison a cat with them.”
“No,” said Aleck Macey; “I know.”
“Know what?”
“It’s a dodge to make a job for his uncle, because the doctor can’t get any practice.”
“Don’t want any,” said the lad, good-humouredly. “If he did, he’d go back to Savile Row.”