Page:Lieut Gullivar Jones - His Vacation - Edwin Arnold (1905).djvu/38

 comrade, then comrade let it be; if maid, why, I shall not quarrel with that, though it cost me a likely messmate."

"You mock me."

"Not I, I never mocked any one."

"And does my robe tell you nothing?"

"Nothing so much; a yellow tunic and becoming enough, but nothing about it to hang a deduction on. Come! Are you a girl, after all?"

"I do not count myself a girl."

"Why, then, you are the most blooming boy that ever eyes were set upon; and though 'tis with some tinge of regret, yet cheerfully I welcome you into the ranks of manhood."

"I hate your manhood, send it after the maidhood; it fits me just as badly."

"But An, be reasonable; man or maid you must be."

"Must be; why?"

"Why?" Was ever such a question put to a sane mortal before? I stared at that ambiguous thing before me, and then, a little wroth to be played with, growled out something about Martians being all drunk or mad.

Tis you yourself are one or other," said that individual, by this time pink with anger, "and if you think because I am what I am you can safely taunt me, you are wrong. See! I have a sting," and like a thwarted child my companion half drew from the folds of the yellow tunic-dress