"I say," he exclaimed, "what a place this is! Fancy not being allowed to let off a gun. It's just what you might have expected from an old maid like Aunt Mabel, but I should have thought Valentine would have had more pluck. A fine sort of soldier he'll make—the milksop!"
Raymond Fosberton had for some time been running up an account in his cousin's bad books. This speech was the final entry, and caused Jack to demand an immediate settlement.
"Look here," he began, trembling with indignation, "don't you speak like that to me about Aunt Mab or Valentine, He's got a jolly sight more pluck than you have, you coward! If you want to begin calling names, I'll tell you yours—you're a liar and a sneak!"
"What d'you mean?"
"I mean what I say. I know all your little game, and it's no good your trying to keep it dark any longer. You told Hanks that Val and I had set that rick on fire, and so got us into a row through the man's speaking to us at Melchester. And last year, when we met him, you made out you didn't know why he should be always pestering us for money."
Raymond's face turned pale, but he made no attempt to deny the accusation.
"That was one of your cowardly tricks. Another was when you ran away after knocking that lamp over at the fair, the other day, and left Rosher and me to get out of the bother as best we could. That was what practically got me thrown out of the school. For two pins I'd punch your head, you miserable tailor's dummy!"
It was hardly likely that a fashionable young man like Master Raymond Fosberton would stand such language from a school-boy two years his junior.
"I should like to see you!" he remarked. "Two can play at that game."
The speaker did not know the person he was addressing; in another moment his request was granted. Jack came at him like a tiger, put all the force of his outraged feelings into a heavy right and left, and Raymond Fosberton disappeared with a great crash into a laurel bush.