"Yes, sir?"
"By the way, what size shoes do you take? Gad! your foot's pretty hefty for a sixteen-year-old, I must say! What's the number of those delicate little trotters?"
Cyril laughed self-consciously.
"They are rather huge, aren't they?" he replied. "But they're tens. Same size as Ross, you know, so that I can often borrow his shoes—and Captain Macdonald's as well. Funny we should all be the same size, isn't it?"
"Yes—deuced funny," returned Cleek, sucking in his lips suddenly and his face gone grim. "Tens—eh? Thought it was sixes for you and sevens for your brother."
"Who the dickens told you that fairy-tale, sir?"
"Oh, nobody particular. I must have dreamt it, I suppose," returned Cleek with a shrug of the shoulders. "And— I say, Cyril. Your man Jarvis seems to have trotters, too. What size are his boots now, I wonder?"
Cyril's eyes flew wide.
"You must have made a mistake," he said in a surprised voice. "For Jarvis's feet are awfully small. Eights, I believe. Anyway, I can't get 'em on because I tried once. Stole his dress clothes and dressed up in 'em. But the mater was furious! Hello! there's the tea-gong. I must be off!"
Then he went off forthwith. Meanwhile Cleek, with his finger upon his chin, stood stock-still in the middle of the hallway and pinched up his brows.