TWO.

"TWO FOR A PAIR."

"Hullo, Cinder!"

"Hullo, Spoon!"

"Who are you calling Cinder?"

"Who are you calling Spoon?"

"You. Well, Ladle then, if you don't like Spoon."

"And you have it Scorcher if you like, old Burnet."

"Burnet's a better name than Ladelle."

"Oh, is it! I don't know so much about that, Vincey. And it isn't
pronounced as if it was going into a soup tureen. You know that well
enough. It's a fine old French name."

"Of course I know your finicking way of calling it _Lah Delle_; but, if
you're English, it's Ladle. Ha, ha, ha! Ladle for frog soup, Frenchy."

"You won't be happy till I've punched your head, Vince Burnet."

"Shan't I? All right, then: make me happy," said Vince to another
sun-browned lad whom he had just encountered among the furze and
heather--all gold and purple in the sunny islet where they dwelt--and in
the most matter-of-fact way he took off his jacket; and then began a
more difficult task, which made him appear like some peculiar animal
struggling out of its skin: for he proceeded to drag off the tight blue
worsted jersey shirt he wore, and, as it was very elastic, it clung to
his back and shoulders as he pulled it over his head, and, of course,
rendered him for the moment helpless--a fact of which his companion was
quite ready to take advantage.

"Want to fight, do you?" he cried: "you shall have it then," and,
grinning with delight, he sprang upon the other's back, nipping him with
his knees, and beginning to slap and pummel him heartily.

Vince Burnet made a desperate effort to get free, but the combination of
his assailant's knees and the jersey effectively imprisoned him, and,
though he heaved and tossed and jerked himself, he could not dislodge
the lad, who clung to him like Sinbad's old man of the sea, till he fell
half exhausted in a thick bed of heather, where he was kept down to
suffer a kind of roulade of thumps, delivered very heartily upon his
back as if it were a drum.

"Murder! murder!" cried Vince, in smothered tones, with the jersey over
his head.

"Yes, I'll give you murder! I'll give you physic! How do you like
that, and that, and that, Doctor?"

Each question was followed by a peculiar double knock on back or ribs.

"Don't like it at all, Mike. Oh, I say, do leave off!"

"Shan't. Don't get such a chance every day. I'll roast your ribs for
you, my lad."

"No, no: I give in. I'm done."

"Ah! that sounds as if you didn't f