Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/149

 should think he was! Why, he made a century in the Eton and Harrow; it's still mentioned when the match comes round. And I've got to tell you about your own uncle!"

"It only shows what he is, not to have told me himself," said Jan, for once infected with the other's enthusiasm. "I knew he was a captain in the Rifle Brigade, and a jolly fine chap, but that was all."

"Well, now you should write and tell him how you took his advice."

"I'll wait and see how it comes off first," returned Jan, with native shrewdness. "I've had my bit of fun, but old Haigh has the term before him to get on to me more than ever."

Yet on the whole Jan had a far better term in school than he expected. If, as he felt, he was deservedly deeper than ever in the master's disesteem, at least the fact was less patent and its expression less blatant than heretofore. Haigh betrayed his old animosity from time to time, but he no longer gave it free rein. He gave up loading Jan with the elaborate abuse of a trenchant tongue, and unnecessarily exposing his ignorance to the form. He started systematically ignoring him instead, treating him as a person who seldom existed, and was not to be taken seriously when he did, all of which suited the boy very well without hurting him in the least. He would have been genuinely unmoved by a more convincing display of contempt on the part of Mr. Haigh; on the other hand, he often caught that gentleman's eye upon him, and there was something in its wary glance that gave the Tiger quite a tigerish satisfaction. He did not flatter himself that the man was frightened of him, though such was in a sense the case; but he did chuckle over the thought that Haigh would be as glad to be shot of him as he of Haigh.