“No, not Miss; just Jones.”
“All serene, just Jones, then shut up; stick on your lavender gloves, and keep your hair on.”
There was a general laugh at this which vastly solaced the aggrieved Trimble, and encouraged him to refer jocularly to my late hat and boots, topics which I had not the spirit to resent.
As soon as these personal matters were disposed of, I was tacitly admitted as a member of the honourable faggery, and invited to express my opinion on a matter which had been engaging the attention of the fraternity before I arrived.
“We were thinking,” said my late travelling companion, whom his friends addressed as Langrish, “that it would be a score to get up a Philosophical Society in the school. What do you say?”
“What to do?” I ventured to ask.
“Oh, discussions, and picnics, and larks. What do you suppose we should do? There’s a senior club of the kind already. They go in for dry rot—science and history, and that sort of thing. Awful slow, and nobody knows what he’s talking about. I flatter myself we should.”
“We ought to draw up some rules, oughtn’t we?” said Trimble.
“Rather—forge ahead.”
Whereupon we crowded solemnly round the small table and put our heads together.