“Shut up, Sheeny,” said one.
“Now then, old clo’,” said another.
I was not the possessor of Jewish blood for nothing. Where an English boy would have struck out I remained Orientally contemptuous of insult. I merely wondered if the time would ever come when I should be able to remind Lionel Holland—the last boy who had spoken—of his insult.
“If six people were to die I should be Earl Gascoyne,” I said grandly.
There arose a shout of laughter.
“Pigs might fly,” said Lionel Holland.
I flushed. The only impression produced by my grandiloquent speech was that I was a stupid liar. Even my bosom friend Billy Statham shrank away from me. Such a useless lie offended his sense of propriety.
I was only twelve and had some difficulty in keeping back my tears.
“It’s true,” I asserted.
“How can it be true?” demanded Holland. “You are a Jew and your name is not Gascoyne.”