"How d'you get on with Villiers?" he asked.
"Like oil and water. He sees fit to make fun of me before the form—says I can't talk English because I say 'grass' and not 'grarse' like the sheep. If I can't talk English, I can't—but I can talk to him in Russian, German, Italian, French, Spanish, Gaelic and Magyar. Then he reports me to the Head."
I did my best not to laugh, but his palpable sense of injustice was sufficiently sincere to be ludicrous.
"I now understand why you go by the name of Spitfire," Loring remarked.
"The dago that first called me that has a broken thumb to remember it by."
At this moment the prayer-bell began to ring, and O'Rane jumped up from his chair. As I strolled in to prayers, Loring called down grievous curses on the race to which O'Rane and I belonged.
"What are we going to do with him, George?" he demanded. "This is mere cruelty to children."
The answer came after call-over. O'Rane passed us at the foot of the stairs on his way to Middle Dormitory. There was the ghost of a smile on his lips as he bade us good-night.
"Good-night, O'Rane," I responded.
"We shall meet in ten days' time."