“No one likes to go about all day with a mountebank!” grumbled Eric.
“If only he’d had fewer clothes!” I sighed.
But even the most sanguine destroyer of garments could hardly hope that Léon would wear out the quantity of which he was possessed in less than six months.
The twins and Léon came toward us from the tennis lawn; the twins red and triumphant, Léon red and evidently perturbed. Jennie followed, lingering in the rear; she is lame, not a cripple, you know, but noticeably lame.
“England won!” shouted the twins. They always seemed to speak in a sort of chorus.
Léon sat down on the bank beside us and shook his hair back from his face. He evidently intended to appeal to Eric about something; but just as he opened his mouth to speak, he noticed Jennie.
“Come, my cousin,” he called, patting the bank beside him; “we shall have good fortune another time!”
“England won!” chanted the twins again. “We always do!”
“That is not so!” cried Léon angrily. “Why do you speak to despise my country? If you were in France, my guest, we speak not forever of Hastings?”
“Oh, that was ages ago,” said Eric judicially; “but you were not fairly matched.”