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Me supposeth thou shouldst choose to return to thine own Castle of Cardiff. But if it pleased thee rather to abide in the Court, I cast no doubt " "Let be! and then?" "Then, in very deed," resumed Isabel, warming with her subject, "thou shouldst have chance to make good alliance for Nib and Dickon, and see them well set in fair estate." "Ah! and then?"
"His corporal oath ensure me! nay, nor an' he sware by Saint Beelzebub!" cried Custance in bitter scorn. "I have heard of a corporal oath ere now, child. How many days were, ere it was broken to shivers? I tell thee, Nib, Harry of Bolingbroke may swear an' it like him by every saint in the calendar from Aaron to Zachary; and when he is through, my faith in his oaths will go by the eye of a needle.
The big moment came. Fillet opened his mark-book and read the names in the order of last term's examination-list, which brought Doe's name first. Doe was mending a nib when his name was called, and, without raising his head, replied "100, sir." Other names followed, and the boys gave up the marks allotted them by Penny's system. Then came mine. "Ray?"
But he did not get up at once, and we turned to the fountain-pens. "Any nib," he said, "crossed ever so, I could mend it. Kep' the books too; we was always stocktaking." Now I think of it, fountain-pen shops always are stocktaking. They do it all down the Strand, with big red labels across the front.
Michael had tried to kill him. His stiff wrenched throat throbbed together with his head. For a long time he did not move. At last the clock struck again. He staggered to his feet as if he had been called, and looked with intentness at a fallen book and upset inkstand. There was a quill pen balancing itself in an absurd manner with its nib stuck in the cane bottom of an overturned chair.
"Wall, I'll be plunked," finally exclaimed the blacksmith. "Looks like the feller's rich, don't it?" "Ef he's rich, what the tarnation blazes is he comin' here for?" demanded Nib Corkins, the dandy of the town. "I was over t' Huntingdon las' year, 'n' seen how the rich folks live. Boys, this h'ain't no place for a man with money." "That depends," responded Cotting, gravely.
The pilot took the proffered pen in unaccustomed fingers and made a crisscross scrawl, adorned with thirteen blots. The pen nib broke under the strain, and he handed it back with an air of confidential remonstrance. "That thing's no mo-ah good," he volunteered. "So I see. Now tell me your name in full, so that I can write it next to the mark. It's a wonder of a mark! Mac what's the rest of it?"
He cut his quills with the patience of a monk in the scriptorium, shaving and altering the nib, lightening and increasing the pressure and flexibility of the points, till the pen satisfied him, and gave a stroke both broad and even.
He cleared his throat, took a sip of water, broke the nib of a quill against the desk, and, folding his bony hands before him, began. To James he suddenly loomed much larger than he had ever thought Bentham would loom.
"Well, darling, mother wants you to. So sit down like a dear boy and get it done." "I think my nib is crossed." "Is it? You'll find another in my desk." "But, mother, yours are so thick." "Please, Mark, don't make any more excuses. Don't you want to do everything you can to help me just now?"
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