Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/218

 the top dormitory, at any rate, the kind of chap he was. And yet he was not the kind who often saw himself in heroic proportions; but an abnormal mood was at the back and front of this whole adventure; and perhaps no more fitting climax could have inflamed a reeling mind. He produced his pennies with sudden determination, yet with a hand as cool as his brain was hot, and as cool a preliminary survey to make sure that Mulberry was not already dogging him.

"Two rings a penny," said the fur-capped custodian of the watches, handing the rings to Jan. "An' wot you rings you 'aves."

Jan stood alone before the sloping board, kept a few feet off by an intervening table, and he poised his first ring as the steam fiend broke out again with "Over the Garden Wall." A back-handed spin sent it well among the watches, and it went on spinning until it settled at an angle over one of the boxes, as though loth to abandon the attempt to ring it properly.

"Rings must lie flat to win," said the fellow in the fur cap, with a quick squint at Jan. "Try again, mister; you'll do better with less spin."

Jan grinned dryly as he resolved to put on a bit more. He had heard his father drive hard bargains in the Saturday night's marketing aforetime. Old Rutter had known how to take care of himself across any stall or barrow, even when his gait was like Mulberry's on the way home; and Jan had a sense of similar capacity as he poised his second ring against the voluminous folds of Mr. Heriot's cape. Thence it skimmed with graceful trajectory, in palpable gyrations; had circled one of the square boxes before he knew it, and was spinning down it like a nut on a bolt, when the man in the fur cap whipped a finger between the ring and the table.