"
"A crop of leaves! What a jolly old Jack-in-the-Green you must have
looked like! Which of those scars on your face is the arrow-wound, eh?
Oh, that's it--is it? I say, old boy, you've got a black eye! Did any
of those fellows in the Snuggery hit hard enough to hurt you?"
"Hurt me? Chaps like them _hurt Me!!"_ Tickled by the extravagance of
the idea which Zack's question suggested to him, Mat shook his sturdy
shoulders, and indulged himself in a gruff chuckle, which seemed to
claim some sort of barbarous relationship with a laugh.
"Ah! of course they haven't hurt you;--I didn't think they had," said
Zack, whose pugilistic sympathies were deeply touched by the contempt
with which his new friend treated the bumps and bruises received in the
fight. "Go on, Mat, I like adventures of your sort. What did you do
after your head healed up?"
"Well, I got tired of dodging about the Amazon, and went south, and
learnt to throw a lasso, and took a turn at the wild horses. Galloping
did my head good."
"It's just what would do my head good too. Yours is the sort of life,
Mat, for me! How did you first come to lead it? Did you run away from
home?"
"No. I served aboard ship, where I was put out, being too idle a
vagabond to be kep' at home.
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