“It is the painful duty of the chair,” said he, “to remind our sculptor that he claims to have been infected with an original and rippin’ idea.”
Rippley shook himself peevishly:
“This bleating minor poet keeps diggin’ his dandified elbow into my ideas until he makes ’em sulk in their tents like—like Ash-heels.”
“Achilles, Rippley—Achilles!” cooed the poet gently.
Rippley turned upon him:
“I say, poet,” said he, walking up to the languid Aubrey, “you’re looking sallow; you poets don’t take enough exercise. I bet I put you under that sofa.”
Aubrey rose to his feet in alarm, and took up a mild attitude of protest:
“Now, don’t be vulgar, Rippley!” said he.
But the thick-set little sculptor jumped at him and bore him to the ground. The two rolled on the carpet until Rippley, getting the grip of the plaintive poet, pushed his slim figure, expostulating, beneath the sofa, where he disappeared from view under its hangings, amidst a roar of applause.
Lovegood coughed: