Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/211

 "Not you, old chap!" said Chips, making an unfortunate entry into the discussion after all.

"I would so," declared Jan hot-headedly. "I'd do it to-morrow if the fair wasn't going away."

Bingley began to jeer.

"I like that, when you jolly well know it is going!"

"I'll go to-night, if you say much more, you fool!"

Jan's springs twanged and wheezed as he sat bolt upright in his bed.

"You know you won't be such a silly idiot," said Chips, in an earnest voice.

"Of course he does!" jeered Bingley. "Nobody knows it quite so well."

There was an instant's pause, filled by a sounding blast from the market-place, and then the thud of bare feet planted on the floor.

"Surely you're not going to let him dare you"

"Not he; don't you worry!"

It was Bingley who cut Chips short, and Jan thanked him as he slid into his trousers in the dark. His voice was strange, and not without the tremor of high excitement. There was a jingle of curtain-rings across the dormitory. Carpenter was out of his partition in defiance of the rules; he appeared dimly at the foot of Jan's, into which Bingley was already peering over the partition.

"Are you off your chump?" demanded Chips.

"Not he," said Bingley again. "He's only bunging us up!"

Bingley might have been an infant Mephistopheles; but he was really only an incredulous, irritated, and rather excited schoolboy.

"You'll see directly," muttered Jan, slipping his braces over his night shirt.