Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/51

 at a happy trot. He was an age finding curtains, carpet and table-cloth, of a sufficiently harmonious shade of red; and no doubt Jan made all the more point of leaving the choice of his chattels entirely to the tradesman.

"Send me what you think," he said. "It's all one to me."

Carpenter rallied him in all seriousness on their way back to the house.

"I can't understand it, Rutter, when you have an absolute voice in everything."

"I hadn't a voice in coming here," replied Rutter, so darkly as to close the topic.

"I suppose I go to the other extreme," resumed Carpenter, with a reflective frankness which seemed a characteristic. "I shall have more chairs than I've room for if I don't take care. I've bought one already from Shockley."

"Good night!" cried Jan. "Whatever made you do that?"

"Oh, he would have me into his study to have a look at it; and there were a whole lot of them there—that fellow Buggins, and Jane Eyre, and the one they call Cranky—and they all swore it was as cheap as dirt. There are some beasts here!" added Carpenter below his breath.

"How much was it?"

"Seven-and-six; and I didn't really want it a bit; and one of the legs was broken all the time!"

"And," added Jan, for his only comment, "the gang of them are in our form and all!"

They met most of the house trooping out of the quad, with bats and pads, but not in flannels. They were going to have a house-game on the Middle Ground, as the September day was warmer than many of the moribund