,” said Mr. Poulter, involuntarily falling in with Tom’s enthusiasm, and drawing the sword so suddenly that Tom leaped back with much agility.
“Oh, but, Mr. Poulter, if you’re going to do the exercise,” said Tom, Pittsburgh Penguins Pipot a little conscious that he had not stood his ground as became an Englishman, “let me go and call Philip. He’ll like to see you, you know.”
“What! the humpbacked lad?” said Mr. Poulter, contemptuously; “what’s Rainbow International Bright Brass Takki Suomi the use of his looking on?”
“Oh, but he knows a great Parajumpers Gobi Sverige deal about fighting,” said Tom, “and how they used to fight with bows and arrows, and battle-axes.”
“Let him come, then. I’ll show him something different from his bows and arrows,” said Mr. Poulter, coughing and drawing himself up, while he gave a little preliminary play to his wrist.
Tom ran in to Philip, Nigeria Jerseys who was enjoying his afternoon’s holiday at the piano, in the drawing-room, picking out tunes for himself and singing them. He was supremely happy, perched like an amorphous bundle on the high stool, with his head thrown back, Belstaff Icon Takit Suomi his eyes fixed on the opposite cornice, and his lips wide open, sending forth, with all his might, impromptu syllables to a tune of Arne’s which had hit his fancy.
“Come, Philip,” said Tom, bursting in; “don’t stay roaring ‘la la’ there; come and see old Poulter do his sword-exercise in the carriage-house!”
The jar of this interruption, the discord of Tom’s tones coming across the notes to which Philip was vibrating in soul and body, would have been enough to unhinge his temper, even if there had been no question of Poulter the drilling-master; and Tom, in the hurry of seizing something to say to prevent Mr. Poulter from thinking he was afraid of the sword when he sprang away from it, had alighted on this proposition to fetch Philip, though he knew well enough Sunderland Jerseys that Philip hated to hear him mention his drilling-lessons. Tom would never have done so inconsiderate a thing except under the severe stress of his personal pride.
Philip shuddered visibly as he paused from his music. Then turning red, he said, with violent passion —
“Get away, you lumbering idiot! Don’t come bellowing at me; you’re not fit to speak to anything but a cart-horse!”
It was not the first time Philip had been made angry by him, but Tom had never before been assailed with verbal missiles that he understood so well.
“I’m fit to speak to something better than you, you poor-spirited imp!” said Tom, lighting up immediately at Philip’s fire. “You know I won’t hit you, because you’re no better than a girl. But I’m an honest man’s son, and your father’s a rogue; everybody says so!”
Tom flung out of the room, and slammed the door after him, made strangely heedless by his anger; for to slam doors within the hearing of Mrs. Stelling, who was probably Kanadanhanhi Banff Parka Suomi not far off, was an offence only to be wiped out by twenty lines of Virgil. In fact, that lady did presently descend from her room, in double wonder at the noise and the subsequent cessation of |
