"What rot!" said Beatrice. "He can if he likes."

But he carried his point. I let him carry it, and only began to grow
angry three or four minutes later. Then we were still discussing play
and disputing about another game. Nothing seemed right for all of us.

"We don't want you to play with us at all," said Archie.

"Yes, we do," said Beatrice.

"He drops his aitches like anything."

"No, 'e doesn't," said I, in the heat of the moment.

"There you go!" he cried. "E, he says. E! E! E!"

He pointed a finger at me. He had struck to the heart of my shame. I
made the only possible reply by a rush at him. "Hello!" he cried, at my
blackavised attack. He dropped back into an attitude that had some style
in it, parried my blow, got back at my cheek, and laughed with surprise
and relief at his own success. Whereupon I became a thing of murderous
rage. He could box as well or better than I--he had yet to realise I
knew anything of that at all--but I had fought once or twice to a finish
with bare fists. I was used to inflicting and enduring savage hurting,
and I doubt if he had ever fought. I hadn't fought ten seconds before
I felt this softness in him, realised all that quality of modern
upper-class England that never goes to the quick, that hedges about
rules and those petty points of honour that are the ultimate comminution
of honour, that claims credit for things demonstrably half done. He