“What the deuce I said to bring that on myself, I don’t know,” Algernon remarked as he rose.  “Anything connected with the country disagreeable to you, Ned?  Come! a bout of quiet scientific boxing, and none of these beastly rushes, as if you were singling me out of a crowd of magsmen.  Did you go to church yesterday, Ned?  Confound it, you’re on me again, are you?”

And Algernon went on spouting unintelligible talk under a torrent of blows.  He lost his temper and fought out at them; but as it speedily became evident to him that the loss laid him open to punishment, he prudently recovered it, sparred, danced about, and contrived to shake the room in a manner that caused Edward to drop his arms, in consideration for the distracted occupant of the chambers below.  Algernon accepted the truce, and made it peace by casting off one glove.

“There! that’s a pleasant morning breather,” he said, and sauntered to the window to look at the river.  “I always feel the want of it when I don’t get it.  I could take a thrashing rather than not on with the gloves to begin the day.  Look at those boats!  Fancy my having to go down to the city.  It makes me feel like my blood circulating the wrong way.  My father’ll suffer some day, for keeping me at this low ebb of cash, by jingo!”

He uttered this with a prophetic fierceness.

“I cannot even scrape together enough for entrance money to a Club.  It’s sickening!  I wonder whether I shall ever get used to banking work?  There’s an old clerk in our office who says he should feel ill if he missed a day.  And the old porter beats him—­bangs him to fits.  I believe he’d die off if he didn’t see the house open to the minute.  They say that old boy’s got a pretty niece; but he don’t bring her to the office now.  Reward of merit!—­Mr. Anthony Hackbut is going to receive ten pounds a year extra.  That’s for his honesty.  I wonder whether I could earn a reputation for the sake of a prospect of ten extra pounds to my salary.  I’ve got a salary! hurrah!  But if they keep me to my hundred and fifty per annum, don’t let them trust me every day with the bags, as they do that old fellow.  Some of the men say he’s good to lend fifty pounds at a pinch.—­Are the chops coming, Ned?”

“The chops are coming,” said Edward, who had thrown on a boating-coat and plunged into a book, and spoke echoing.

“Here’s little Peggy Lovell.”  Algernon faced this portrait.  “It don’t do her justice.  She’s got more life, more change in her, more fire.  She’s starting for town, I hear.”

“She is starting for town,” said Edward.

“How do you know that?” Algernon swung about to ask.

Edward looked round to him.  “By the fact of your not having fished for a holiday this week.  How did you leave her yesterday, Algy?  Quite well, I hope.”

The ingenuous face of the young gentleman crimsoned.

“Oh, she was well,” he said.  “Ha!  I see there can be some attraction in your dark women.”