Why, a
Whitechapel guttersnipe----"
"Can't appreciate the allusion," said Jim; "I've never been to
Whitechapel. But anyhow, Todd, there's the door. I think you had really
better go."
"Not till I've said you're the biggest bounder in St. Amory's."
"Now you've said it you really must go, or I'll throw you out!"
Gus was too taken up with his own passion to notice that Cotton was also
at about the limit of his patience, and that Jim's lips had set into a
grim and ugly sneer. Todd was furiously trying to find some clinching
expression which would quite define Jim's conduct, when that gentleman
took one stride forward and caught him by the collar. The grip, the very
touch of Cotton's fingers maddened Gus beyond all bearing. His anger
broke loose from all control; he wrenched himself out of Cotton's grasp
and passionately struck him on the mouth.
Cotton turned grey with passion as bitter as Todd's and repaid Gus's
blow with interest. Gus dropped to the floor, bleeding villainously.
Cotton thereupon jerked him to his feet, and threw him out of the room.
Gus picked himself up from the corridor floor and went to his own room,
his face as white as a sheet and his heart as black as ink. What Gus
suffered from his passion, his shame, his hatred, and the pain of his
old friend's blow, for the next few hours words will not tell. He
attended morning school, his head in a whirl of thought. Cotton was
there too, and, could looks have killed, Jim Cotton would not have been
in the land of the living for very long.
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