"What do you think of the master ?" "He seems very sharp and angry," I said, returning to my work.
"He's all that," said the man; "but he's a reg'lar gentleman.

He always drops on to them two if he catches 'em up to their larks.

Nice boys both of 'em." That word _pauper_ rankled a good deal in my breast, for it was quite evident to me that Sir Francis thought I was from one of the unions, and I had had no opportunity of showing him that I was not.
"But I will show him," I said to myself angrily.

"He sha'n't see anything in me to make him believe it.

It's too bad." I was busy, as I said that, arranging a barrowful of plants in rows, where they were to be surrounded with earth, "plunged," as we called it, under the shelter of a wall, where they would get warmth and sunshine and grow hardy and strong, ready for taking in to the shelter of the greenhouse when the weather turned cold.
It was some days since I had seen Philip; but, weakly enough, I let the memory of that word rankle still.
To carry out my task I had to fetch a pot at a time from the large wide barrow, and set them down in the trench that had been cut for them.
This necessitated stooping, and as I was setting one down a lump of something caught me so smartly on the back that I nearly dropped the flower-pot and started upright, looking round for the thrower of the piece of clay, for there it was at my feet.
I could not see, but I guessed at once that it was Philip, though it might have been Courtenay hiding behind some gooseberry bushes or the low hornbeam hedge, about twenty yards away.
"I won't take any notice of the ill-bred young cubs," I said to myself angrily; and I stooped and arranged the pot in its place and went back for another, when _whack_! came another well-aimed piece, and hit me on the side of the cap.
"You--" I stopped myself, as I banged down the pot in a rage--stopped words and act, for I was going to run towards the spot whence the clay seemed to have come.
"It's only play after all," I said to myself.