“Oh, yes, I can keek,” returned Bagasse. “I haf my leg pretty su-ple.”
He turned toward the post against which Witherlee was leaning, and laid his grimy finger on a notch a little above his own head. Witherlee stood aside, and every eye followed the fencing-master. Suddenly, rising on one foot, he dealt the notch a furious kick, amidst cries of “good” and “bravo.” Sure enough, the leg had flown up to the mark, like a leg of india-rubber.
“Ha!” he exclaimed, complacently, “you do zat, you young men. Try now—evairy one.”
Wentworth tried first, kicked high, but did not come within a foot of the mark. Whilt came next, stolid and taciturn, kicked, and tumbled over, amidst general laughter. Vukovich lifted his shapely leg, kicked within half a foot, and split his blue trowsers, at which he looked grieved, and swore softly in Hungarian, while the rest laughed at him. Then came Fisk and Palmer and the others, with poor success, and amidst much merriment.
In the quiet that followed, Whilt, who had been as dumb as a skull, suddenly began to shake and whinny so with guttural mirth, that everybody looked at him with surprise. It came out, after some inquiry, that he was laughing at Vukovich for having torn his trowsers, an incident which had just touched his sense of the ludicrous when everybody else had almost forgotten it. Of course there was another obstreperous roar of merriment, and Witherlee told Whilt he laughed too soon—he ought to have waited till next week—with other sarcasms of the same nature, which the slow Dutchman took into sober consideration.
“Come, Harrington,” said Wentworth, “you try.”
Harrington had stood apart, smiling amusedly, through all this clatter.
“Ah, Missr Harrin’ton, he can keek wis me,” exclaimed Bagasse. “He keek sublime.”
Harrington laughed, and advancing, took up a bit of chalk from the floor, and marked a line on the post, as much above his own head as the notch had been above the fencing-master’s. Then poising a second, he threw up his leg, and brought away chalk on his boot. There was a general burst of acclamation.