CHAPTER II
Wherein it is discovered that, likely enough from an Ancestor who was Master of the Horse to King Harry the Eighth, Master Oliver had inherited some Gift of Horseplay, together with a Keen Eye for a Fine Leg on a Woman.
Netherby Gomme had been sitting some time writing at his desk when the door behind him was stealthily opened and Noll’s head popped round its edge. There was a sharp click of a pea in a tin pea-shooter as the youngster let fly a careful aim at Gomme’s poll.
Gomme jumped, and scratched the back of his neck irritably:
“Curse it, Noll!” he growled testily.
“Naughty!” said Noll, coming into the room, but giving the yellow-haired youth a wide circle as he moved to his desk, and keeping a wary eye on him under a magnificent pretence of carelessness. “Caught you on the raw that time, I think, my ink-stained warrior!” he added cheerfully; but the fire was gone out of the old jest, and it was borne in on the youngster that the oft-repeated joke is somewhat of a damp squib. He broke the tin pea-shooter across his knee, and flung the two pieces into the empty grate. Strolling over to his desk, he took up the office-stool in his arms and carried it to the dusty fireplace. As he scrambled on to the stool Netherby Gomme watched him under his brows.
“I am relieved to see, Noll,” he growled, “that you remember your manhood and your pose as a literary prophet, and intend in future to split hairs instead of spitting peas.” He scratched his head irritably as the other, standing a-tip-toe on the stool, reached up and put back the minute-hand of the clock. “Confound it!” he added, as Noll shut the glass face with a snap, and came down gloomily off his stool—“the whole world seems to be suffering from the vice of forced humour in these days.”
“Don’t be waspish, Netherby,” said the youngster.
He carried the stool back to his desk, took off his silk hat, hung it up, and solemnly mounted into his seat:
“I confess,” he said, and he sighed, “I do feel beastly young at times.”