`You're older than I am aren't you?' said Tom.

`Why, how old are you I'm fifteen.'

`I'm only going in fourteen,' said Tom. `But I thrashed all the fellows at Jacobs' - that's where I was before I came here. And I beat 'em all at bandy and climbing. And I wish Mr Stelling would let us go fishing. I could show you how to fish. You could fish, couldn't you? It's only standing, and sitting still, you know.'

Tom, in his turn, wished to make the balance dip in his favour. This hunchback must not suppose that his acquaintance with fighting stories put him on a par with an actual fighting hero like Tom Tulliver. Philip winced under this allusion to his unfitness for active sports, and he answered almost peevishly,

`I Can't bear fishing. I think people look like fools sitting watching a line hour after hour - or else throwing and throwing, and catching nothing.'

`Ah, but you wouldn't say they looked like fools when they landed a big pike, I can tell you,' said Tom, who had never caught anything that was `big' in his life, but whose imagination was on the stretch with indignant zeal for the honour of sport. Wakem's son, it was plain, had his disagreeable points, and must be kept in due check. Happily for the harmony of this first interview, they were now called to dinner, and Philip was not allowed to develop farther his unsound views on the subject of fishing. But Tom said to himself: that was just what he should have expected from a hunchback.