"You hope he'll marry? Well, I'm——"
John's jaw stuck out. The emphasis on the "hope" and the upraised eyebrow smote hard.
"You don't mean to say," he began hotly, "you don't think that——"
"I can think what I please," said Scaife, curtly; "and so can you." He laughed derisively. "Thinking what they please is about the only liberty allowed to new boys. Even the Duffer learned to hold his tongue during his first term."
The Caterpillar—the tall, thin, aristocratic boy—spoke solemnly. He was a dandy, the understudy—as John soon discovered—of one of the "Bloods"; a "Junior Blood," or "Would-be," a tremendous authority on "swagger," a stickler for tradition, who had been nearly three years in the school.
"The Demon is right," said he. "A new boy can't be too careful, Verney. Your being funny in hall just now made a dev'lish bad impression."
"But I didn't mean to be funny. I told Lawrence so directly after call-over."
The Caterpillar pulled down his cuffs.
"If you didn't mean to be funny," he concluded, "you must be an ass."
Duff, however, remembered that John was nephew to an explorer.