“Oh, it wasn’t much of a row. It was only a scrimmage,” said Dick. “Ned said King James cut off Raleigh’s head because he would smoke tobacco. Did you ever hear such nonsense?”
“But Aunt Anne told me King James wrote a book against smoking,—didn’t you, aunt?” urged the smaller lad.
“And I said it was ridiculous,” cried Dick.
“And Jack he up and said it wasn’t, because if he was a king, and people didn’t do as he wanted, he would cut off their heads, like that,” said Ned, knocking off the end of an egg, by way of illustration.
“And so we had a melley,” remarked Jack. “It wasn’t much, and that’s all there was of it. I don’t see why people make such a fuss.”
“Suppose you let this suffice for the day, you rascals,” said Mr. Lyndsay.
“Yes, sir.”
“And it wasn’t Raleigh who brought tobacco to England, was it, Aunt Anne?” said Ned. “I told Dick it was Hawkins, and he wouldn’t believe me. I saw it in—”
“Where?”
Ned hesitated. His habit of lying on his stomach on the floor in the long winter afternoons, with some monstrous quarto, was matter for unending chaff on the part of the twins.