Dick was seated there, but did not raise his head, being too deeply immersed in the latest issue of The Foxonian to heed his chum's entry.
"Hallo! That scurrilous rag out again?" said Roger. "Don't soil your hands, Dick; I'll reach the tongs."
"Oh, rats, Roger! Don't be prejudiced. It's 'extra special' this time," was Dick's enthusiastic comment. "Don't I just wish I could do anything half so clever!"
"Are you quite sure you couldn't? You generally 'click' when you make up your mind to tackle a thing, Dick."
Dick flushed. "Don't!" he said, quickly. "Oh, my dear old pard, have a care! You are stirring dangerously deep thoughts within me. If I could write with the sparkle and wit that Luke Harwood puts into this topping magazine of his, I'd be content never to kick a football or swing a cricket-bat again. Listen to this, lad—it's great!"
Appreciatively he read aloud a little article, in which Luke Harwood had scourged some Foxonians whom he had caught in the act of twisting an inoffensive donkey's tail. The irony was clever, though probably aimed too high to penetrate the skulls of those whom it was intended to shame.
"Literature, my good Roger," Dick declared. "Shows a kind heart, too—he's down on animal-torturers."
"Quite right that he and everybody else should be. Yet," said Roger rather bitterly, "in his laudable anxiety to protect quadrupeds, he might have extended a little consideration to donkeys of the two-legged variety."
"Don't be sphinx-like, Roger! When you look like an owl and talk like a book I'm afraid of you. What are you getting at?"
"In plain English, then, this humane editor slates the fatheaded youngsters who twisted the donkey's tail, but omits to chide himself and his clique for pulling the leg of Fluffy Jim, the village ass. Now, honestly, which do you call the crueller sport of the two?"