Page:Lynch Williams--The girl and the game.djvu/180

 should be seen and not heard," he said in a loud tone which was intended for withering sarcasm. It did not wither.

"Really? Is that the best you can do?" said Mason raising his eyebrows. "Try again, and see if you can't manage to keep from getting so red in the face this time; it isn't becoming to 'one born to command.'" Mason was a distant cousin of Elliot.

"Shut up, you little poler!" he retorted childishly.

"Your temper"—Mason was buttering his potato and talking in an exasperatingly even tone—"is one of several things you have failed to command. A little poling"—which means hard study—"along that line might not hurt 'the pride and ambition of the family.'"

And Downing spoke up again. Downing was president of the class. "My young friend"—Elliot hated to be patronized by Downing—"we no longer consider it witty to make remarks about polers as you did just now; that is an under-classman trick. You ought to be over it by this time."