z--duoz--ooze."

"What!" cried Macey; and Distin and Vane both looked wonderingly at
their fellow-pupil, who had made a peculiar incoherent guttural noise,
faintly represented by the above words.

Then Vane began to laugh.

"What's the matter, Gil?" he said.

Gilmore gave his neck a peculiar writhe, and his jaws a wrench.

"I wish you fellows wouldn't bother," he cried. "You, Macey, ought to
know better: you give a chap that stickjaw stuff of yours, and then
worry him to speak. Come by post, I said. From London."

Distin gave vent to a contemptuous sniff, and it was seen that he was
busily spreading tobacco on thin pieces of paper, and rolling them up
into cigarettes with the nonchalant air of one used to such feats of
dexterity, though, truth to tell, he fumbled over the task; and as he
noticed that Vane was observing him with a quiet look of good-humoured
contempt, his fingers grew hot and moist, and he nervously blundered
over his task.

"Well," he said with a vicious twang in his tones, "what are you staring
at?"

"You," replied Vane, with his hand holding open a Greek Lexicon.

"Then mind your lessons, schoolboy," retorted Distin sharply. "Did you
never see a gentleman roll a cigarette before?"

"No," said Vane quietly, and then, feeling a little nettled by the
other's tone, he continued, "and I can't see one now."

Distin half rose from the table, crushing a partly formed cigarette in
his hand.

"Did you mean that for another insult, sir?" he cried in a loud, angry
voice.

"Oh, I say, Distie," said Gilmore, rising too, and catching his arm,
"don't be such a pepper-pot. Old Weathercock didn't mean any harm."

"Mind your own business," said Distin, fiercely wrenching his arm free.

"That is my business--to sit on you when you go off like a firework,"
said Gilmore merrily. "I say, does your father grow much ginger on his
plantation?"

"I was speaking to the doctor's boy, and I'll thank you to be silent,"
cried Distin.

"Oh, I say, don't, don't, don't!" cried Macey, apostrophising all three.
"What's the good of kicking up rows about nothing! Here, Distie," he
continued, holding out his box; "have some more jumble."

Distin waved the tin box away majestically, and turned to Vane.

"I said, sir, goo--gloo--goog--"

He stepped from his place to the window in a rage, for his voice had
suddenly become most peculiar; and as the others saw him thrust a white
finger into his mouth and tear out