He handed his instrument to a neighbouring boy.
“Well, what is it?” he asked.
We entered an empty schoolroom.
“Perhaps I may first,” I said, “ask you to accept this.”
It was a box of chocolates weighing half a pound and tastefully adorned with a lemon-coloured ribbon.
“It is merely a token,” I proceeded, “albeit I hope an acceptable one, of a desire to inaugurate friendly relations.”
For a moment he stared at it with his mouth open and then made a rasping noise in the back of his throat.
“But look here,” he said, “you don’t mean to tell me that you’ve interrupted a game of football just to bring me in here and give me half a pound of chocolates?”
“Not wholly,” I said, “nor even principally, though I am naturally a little wounded by your tone of voice. But I also desired to inform you that you were the subject of a prevalent indignity from which personally I have strongly dissented.”
“Good God!” he said. “What on earth do you mean?”