Part 10 (1/2)
”As you call it, d.i.c.ky.”
”I say, don't talk to me as if I were a bird.”
”All right. Now then, let me finish for you: mamma married the young lady to someone else, and there is just a f.a.g-end of the old penchant left.”
”Oh, hang it, no!”
”I beg pardon!--the young lady's, too. But, my dear d.i.c.k, I am one of the most even-tempered of men; but if you keep up that miserable fas.h.i.+onable drawl and lisp, I shall take hold of you and shake you.”
”But, my dear fellow--weally, Mawcus.”
”Am I to do it? Say 'Marcus' out plain.”
”Mawcus.”
”No! Marcus.”
”Marcus.”
”That's better. There, hang it all, d.i.c.k, you are a soldier; for heaven's sake be one. Try to be manly, old fellow, and pitch over those silly affectations.”
”It's all very well for you,” said d.i.c.k Millet, in an ill-used tone.
”You are naturally manly. Why, you are five feet ten at least, and broad-shouldered and strong.”
”While you are only about five feet two, and slight, and have a face as smooth as a girl's.”
”Five feet three and a half,” said the other quickly.
”How do you know?”
”I made the sergeant put me under the standard this morning. I can't help it if I haven't got a heavy brown moustache like you!”
”Who said you could help it, stupid? Why, what a little gander you are, d.i.c.k! I'm eight-and-twenty, and you are eighteen.”
”Nineteen!”
”Well, nineteen, then. There, there, you are only a boy yet, so why not be content to be a boy? You'll grow old quite fast enough, my dear lad.
Do you know why I like you?”
”Well, not exactly. But you do like me, don't you, Glen?”
”Like you? Yes, when you are what I see before me now, boyish and natural. When you put on those confounded would-be manly airs, and grow affected and mincing as some confounded Burlington Arcade dandy, I think to myself, What a contemptible little puppy it is!”
”I say, you know--” cried the lad, and he tried to look offended.
”Say away, stupid! Well?”
Captain Marcus Glen, of Her Majesty's 50th Lancers, a detachment of which, from the headquarters at Hounslow, were stationed at Hampton Court, sank back in his chair, let fall the newspaper he had been reading, and took out and proceeded to light a cigar, while Richard Millet flushed up angrily, got off the edge of the table where he had been sitting and swinging a neat patent-leather boot adorned with a spur, and seemed for a moment as if he were about to leave the room in a pet.