“Does what? I never heard Georgie talk funnily about things, and I’ve known him a good bit. Who’s leading him astray? Am I?”
Poor Aspinall was on the tight-rope again, at the most ticklish part. For he did think Dick was running Heathcote into mischief, unintentionally, no doubt, but still unmistakably, “Am I?” repeated Dick, rounding on his man, and fixing him with his eyes.
“Heathcote’s not so strong-minded as you are, Dick, and when he sees you doing things, I fancy he thinks he can do them too. But he can’t pull up like you, and so he gets into rows.”
“Oh!” said Dick, returning to his quill pen, and completing its demolition. Then he pulled out the letter, and read it to himself again, and this time, instead of returning it to his pocket, twisted it up into a spill, and lit the gas with it.
“What should you say was the English of ‘Dominat qui in se dominatur,’ young ’un,” he asked, casually, when the operation was complete.
“Why, that’s one of the mottoes in the Quad,” said Aspinall, wondering what on earth this had to do with Heathcote’s rows. “I always fancied it meant, ‘He rules best, who knows how to rule himself.’”
“Which is the word for best,” asked Dick, critically, rather pleased to have found a flaw in the motto.
“Oh, I suppose it’s understood,” said Aspinall.
“Why couldn’t he say what he meant, straight out?” said Dick, waxing wondrous wroth at the motto-maker, “there’s plenty of room in the Quad for an extra word.”
Aspinall quite blushed at this small explosion, and somehow felt personally implicated in the defects of the motto.