“And what do you think of _my_ pleasantries, my young friend?” inquired Grandfather. “Feeling at all witty _now_?”
“Havlan is failing a bit, Sir,” was the cool reply. “I have noticed it at fencing too—Getting old—or beer perhaps. I scarcely felt him and so did not see or feel the point of your joke.”
“Grandfather’s” flush deepened and his smile broadened crookedly. “Try and do yourself justice, Havlan,” he said. “’Nother dozen. ’Tother way.”
Sergeant Havlan changed sides and endeavoured to surpass himself. It was a remarkably sound dozen.
The bad boy did not move, gave no sign, but retained his rigid, slightly hunched attitude, as though he had not counted the second dozen and expected another stroke.
“Let that be a lesson to you to curb your damned tongue,” said “Grandfather,” his anger evaporating, his pride in the stiff-necked, defiant young rogue increasing.
The boy changed not the rigid, slightly hunched attitude.
“Be pleased to wreck no more of my orchid-houses and to exercise your great wit on your equals and juniors,” he added.
Dam budged not an inch and relaxed not a muscle.
“You may go,” said “Grandfather”…. “Well—what are you waiting for?”
“I was waiting for Sergeant Havlan to _begin_,” was the reply. “I thought I was to have a second dozen.”
With blazing eyes, bristling moustache, swollen veins and bared teeth, “Grandfather” rose from his chair. Resting on one stick he struck and struck and struck at the boy with the other, passion feeding on its own passionate acts, and growing to madness—until, as the head gardener and Sergeant rushed forward to intervene, Dam fell to the ground, stunned by an unintentional blow on the head.
“Grandfather” stood trembling…. “_Quite_ a Stukeley,” observed he. “Oblige me by flinging his carcase down the stairs.”
“‘Angry Stookly’s mad Stookly’ is about right, mate, wot?” observed the Sergeant to the gardener, quoting an ancient local saying, as they carried Dam to his room after dispatching a groom for Dr. Jones of Monksmead.
“Dammy Darling,” whispered a broken and tear-stained voice outside Dam’s locked and keyless door the next morning, “are you dead yet?”
“Nit,” was the prompt reply, “but I’m starving to death, fast.”
“I am so glad,” was the sobbed answer, “for I’ve got some flat food to push under the door.”