your chest, or what? You take my tip and give your brain a rest.
Nothing like manual labour for clearing the brain. All the doctors say
so. Those coops ought to be painted to-day or to-morrow. Mind you, I
think old Derrick would be all right if one persevered--"

"--and didn't call him a fat little buffer and contradict everything
he said and spoil all his stories by breaking in with chestnuts of
your own in the middle," I interrupted with bitterness.

"My dear old son, he didn't mind being called a fat little buffer. You
keep harping on that. It's no discredit to a man to be a fat little
buffer. Some of the noblest men I have met have been fat little
buffers. What was the matter with old Derrick was a touch of liver. I
said to myself, when I saw him eating cheese, 'that fellow's going to
have a nasty shooting pain sooner or later.' I say, laddie, just heave
another rock or two at those cocks, will you. They'll slay each
other."

I had hoped, fearing the while that there was not much chance of such
a thing happening, that the professor might get over his feeling of
injury during the night and be as friendly as ever next day. But he
was evidently a man who had no objection whatever to letting the sun
go down upon his wrath, for when I met him on the following morning on
the beach, he cut me in the most uncompromising manner.

Phyllis was with him at the time, and also another girl, who was, I
supposed, from the strong likeness between them, her sister. She had
the same mass of soft brown hair. But to me she appeared almost
commonplace in comparison.