"Everyone knows you're an unpatriotic hog," observed Venables.
"'Cos I don't kick a filthy bit of skin about in the slime? You lousy, over-fed lap-dog, a fat lot you know about patriotism! See here, Venables, what use d'you think you are? Can you ride? No. Can you shoot? No. Can you row? Can you swim? Can you save yourself a God-Almighty thrashing any time I care to foul my hands on you?"
"If you fought fair...." Venables began indignantly.
"I fight with my two hands same as you. 'Course, if you fool round with your everlasting Queensberry Rules, don't be surprised if I hitch you out of your pants and break an arm or two. And, meantime, you sit and hand out gaff about patriotism and the fine man you're growing into by playing football. All the time you know you'd be turned up and smacked if you didn't, and you don't cotton on to that. I've a good mind to take you in hand, Venables."
Mayhew, who was struggling with the current number of his paper, laid his pen down and addressed the meeting.
"Proposed that O'Rane do now shut his face," he suggested.
"Seconded!" cried Sinclair, who was lying on his back in the middle window-seat, drinking cocoa through a length of rubber tubing stolen from the laboratory.
O'Rane smiled and drummed his heels against the echoing locker doors.
"Sinks, come here!" he commanded.