nervous vehemence. "I only did it just to see--just to see--I'll never do
it again, sir."

"Just to see what?" asked Saltash curiously.

But again Toby could not explain himself, and he did not press him.

"Well, you didn't do it at all well," he remarked. "I shouldn't certainly
make a profession of it if I were you. It's plainly not your _métier_."

He paused, but with the air of having something more to say. Toby waited
silently.

It came with a jerk and a grimace, as if some inner force compelled. "I
can't talk pi-jaw--on this subject or any other. You see--I'm a rotter
myself."

"You, sir!" Toby lifted his head suddenly and stared at him with eyes
that blazed passionately blue in the starlight. "Don't believe it!" he
said. "It isn't true."

Saltash grinned a little. His face had the dreary look of something lost
that a monkey's sometimes wears. "You needn't believe it, son, if you
don't want to," he said. "But it's true all the same. That's why I gave
you that licking, see? Just to emphasize the difference between us."

"It isn't true!" Toby asserted again almost fiercely. "I'd kill anyone
else that said so."

"Oh, you needn't do that!" said Saltash, with kindly derision. "Thanks