“Shut—I mean what’s that got to do with it?” retorted the secretary.
“Well?” said my mother, taking a stitch or two at her needlework.
“‘Owing to the side put on by the ex-president, who was lately, kicked out for being a howling cad, and because he was down in form order—’”
“What a cram!” I interposed; “I was on the second desk, and should have had you down weeks ago if I hadn’t been laid up.”
“Ha, ha, I like that—you! Did your mater ever hear about corpore being the ablative masculine, eh?”
“No, I never heard about that,” said my mother.
“All right—Sarah will tell you—where was I, oh—down in form order, though he’s not quite such a crock as Coxhead, who is champion dunce in Low Heath—”
“Me?” exclaimed Coxhead, warm with tea and indignation.
“There you are,” said Langrish, “anybody but a champion dunce would have said ‘I.’ You ask Sarah’s mater if they wouldn’t.”
“Well, you, if you like,” said Coxhead; “what about it—”