"You will not send him away, Robert?" said Mrs Burnet.

"Humph! Well, no," said the Doctor, wrinkling up his brow; "it would seem so dull if he were gone."

CHAPTER TWO.

"TWO FOR A PAIR."

"Hullo, Cinder!"

"Hullo, Spoon!"

"Who are you calling Cinder?"

"Who are you calling Spoon?"

"You. Well, Ladle then, if you don't like Spoon."

"And you have it Scorcher if you like, old Burnet."

"Burnet's a better name than Ladelle."

"Oh, is it! I don't know so much about that, Vincey. And it isn't p.r.o.nounced as if it was going into a soup tureen. You know that well enough. It's a fine old French name."

"Of course I know your finicking way of calling it _Lah Delle_; but, if you're English, it's Ladle. Ha, ha, ha! Ladle for frog soup, Frenchy."

"You won't be happy till I've punched your head, Vince Burnet."

"Shan't I? All right, then: make me happy," said Vince to another sun-browned lad whom he had just encountered among the furze and heather--all gold and purple in the sunny islet where they dwelt--and in the most matter-of-fact way he took off his jacket; and then began a more difficult task, which made him appear like some peculiar animal struggling out of its skin: for he proceeded to drag off the tight blue worsted jersey shirt he wore, and, as it was very elastic, it clung to his back and shoulders as he pulled it over his head, and, of course, rendered him for the moment helpless--a fact of which his companion was quite ready to take advantage.

"Want to fight, do you?" he cried: "you shall have it then," and, grinning with delight, he sprang upon the other's back, nipping him with his knees, and beginning to slap and pummel him heartily.

Vince Burnet made a desperate effort to get free, but the combination of his a.s.sailant's knees and the jersey effectively imprisoned him, and, though he heaved and tossed and jerked himself, he could not dislodge the lad, who clung to him like Sinbad's old man of the sea, till he fell half exhausted in a thick bed of heather, where he was kept down to suffer a kind of roulade of thumps, delivered very heartily upon his back as if it were a drum.

"Murder! murder!" cried Vince, in smothered tones, with the jersey over his head.

"Yes, I'll give you murder! I'll give you physic! How do you like that, and that, and that, Doctor?"

Each question was followed by a peculiar double knock on back or ribs.

"Don't like it at all, Mike. Oh, I say, do leave off!"

"Shan't. Don't get such a chance every day. I'll roast your ribs for you, my lad."

"No, no: I give in. I'm done."

"Ah! that sounds as if you didn't feel sure. As your father says to me when I'm sick, I must give you another dose."

"No, no, don't, please," cried Vince: "you hurt."

"Of course I do. I mean it. How many times have you hurt me?"

"But it's cowardly to give it to a fellow smothered up like I am."

"'Tisn't cowardly: it's the true art of war. Get your enemy up in a corner where he can't help himself, and then pound him like that, and that."

"Oh!--oh!"

"Yes, it is 'Oh!' I never felt any one with such hard, bony ribs before; Jemmy Carnach is soft compared to you."

"I say, you're killing me!"

"Am I? Like to be killed?"

"No. Oh! I say, Mike, don't, there's a good fellow! Let me get up."

"Are you licked?"

"Yes, quite."

"Will you hit me if I let you get up?"

"No, you coward."

_Bang, bang_.

"Oh! I say, don't!"

"Am I a coward, then?"

"Yes.--Oh!"

"Now am I a coward?"

"No, no. You're the bravest, best fellow that ever lived."

"Then you own you're beaten?"

"Oh yes, thoroughly. I say, Mike, I can hardly breathe. Honour bright!"

"Say, you own you're licked, then."

"Yes. Own I'm licked, and--Ah-h-ah!"

Vince gave a final heave, and with such good effect that his a.s.sailant was thrown, and by the time he had recovered himself Vince's red face was reappearing from the blue jersey, which the boy had tugged down into its normal position.

"Oh! won't I serve you out for this some day, Mikey!" he cried, as the other stood on his guard, laughing at him.