"Oh! hang the respect," replied R——, quickly.
"Then you may fish alone," said P——; "for I'll be hanged if I will stand being treated in this kind of way. Suppose, for one moment, you had been in my place, and I had forgotten you, what would you have said and felt? the case is the same."
"Why didn't you come ashore with me?" R—— asked, getting rather testy himself; "am I your nurse? Am I to wait and watch for you?"
"Yes, you ought," said P——; "I would have done it for you. I can't fish and have my eyes about me, in all quarters, at the same time. I think it cursed unmannerly of you both."
R—— looked at me with one of his comic faces, and I looked at him.
"As to my manners," R—— answered aloud, "whether they be vulgar, or whether they be genteel, I take no credit to myself; for an extra allowance was made for my education, that I should be polished brightly like a gentleman, and if you perceive a failure on that score, the fault is not mine, but the preparatory school's. Moreover, if a man has any mental, or personal defect, it is hardly fair to make allusion to it, and by wounding his feelings to seek the gratification of anger."
R—— gave me a wink, as much as to say, "I have the weather-gage of him." P—— spoke not in reply; but continued standing at the window, and, with his back to us, looking out upon the fatal rock and cataract.
"We have left you a couple of eggs," observed R—— pacifically.
"You had better send them back to the hen to be hatched," P—— replied.
"Come, my dear fellow," continued R——, "don't let such a little thing part us. Your being left on the rock was quite an oversight. Exercise a christian spirit, and drink this delicious coffee."