Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/175

 "Go it, Chips!" cried the critic through half a biscuit. "It's first-class; let's have some more."

But Chips only went it for another couplet:—

"Who's he when he's at home?" inquired the relentless Jan.

"Oh, dash it all, you want to know too much! You're as bad as the old man; last time our form showed up verses to him I'd got Olympus, meaning sky. 'Who's your friend Olympus?' says Jerry, with a jab of his joiner's pencil. And now you say the same about poor old Tupper!"

"I didn't; but who is your friend Tupper?"

"He's no friend of mine," explained candid Chips, "but I'd a good rhyme ready for him, so he came in handy, like my old pal Olympus at the end of a hexameter. I expect he's some old penny-a-liner. 'Tupper and Tennyson, Daniel Defoe,' as the song says."

Chips might or might not have been able to say what song he meant. His mind was full of the assorted smatterings of an omniverous but desultory reader, and he never had time to tidy it like his study. He sat pinching the soft rim of one of the candles into a chalice that overflowed and soused his fingers in hot grease. He was not going to read any more aloud, because he knew what rot it all was; but there Jan warmly contradicted him, until he was allowed to listen to the rest like a better friend. Yet just then Jan was not at his best as friend or