The fact is--" Pridgin's good-humoured reply was to shy a book at me, which I was fortunate enough to miss, but which Tempest, who entered the study at the moment, caught fairly on his forehead.
"Hullo! Are you and the kid playing catch ?" said he.

"Sorry to disturb you, really; but my fag's skulking somewhere, and I want to borrow yours to take a message to Crofter." "Was it a plot, or what?
I had far better have written in the faggery after all." "That was exactly the subject about which the kid and I were playing catch just now," said Pridgin.

"I asked him to go to Crofter too." "What, has he been sending you a _billet-doux_ ?" said Tempest.
"Well, yes.

He seems to be sore I didn't ask him to tea yesterday, and says he's afraid some one has been libelling him, though how he knew I had any one here last night I can't imagine." "That's funny," said Tempest; "he writes to me to say he is sorry I should take the trouble to call him a beast in public.

He understands a fellow's right to his private opinion, he says, and would be sorry not to be allowed his about me, but he thinks it imprudent to shout it out for every one to hear.