Silenced by this blunt personality, which Dunn would classify under the head of wit, Redfield abandoned the conversation and devoted himself to his luncheon. Bumpus came rolling in just in season to hear Redfield’s remark and Dunn’s rejoinder.
“Who’s the nice little chap?” he asked, as he removed one chair and took possession of the territory belonging to two.
“You!” sang out Wilmot, giving Bumpus a slap as he tripped past to another table.
Bumpus beamed with joy, not at the jest, which indeed was worn as smooth as a pebble in a pot-hole, but at Wilmot’s cordial manner, and at the intimacy suggested by the playful tap on the shoulder. Word had gone out from Captain Harrison that Bumpus was to be encouraged.
“Captain Mike McKay,” explained Tracy. “Dunn’s got him stung!”
“You don’t suppose I’m going to have him jabbing pens into my legs, do you?” protested Dunn, disappointed to be thrown upon his defence when he had expected to be amusing.
Of course no one did suppose any such thing, and the conversation zigzagged gayly off to distant fields. Meantime Mike was temporarily allaying his indignation by a brisk and noisy game of indoor baseball in the playroom. Later on he paid his penance with stoicism, working out half his home arithmetic problems during the period of his detention.
On the next day Mike endured two or three toe thrusts with Christian forbearance. By squeezing himself against his desk he could put a neutral zone between his own person and the convenient range of the prods. By this pretence of retreat he tempted the enemy into an incautious advance. To reach his prey in spite of bars, Dunn slid farther down in his own seat, and bent his foot around the chair back, so as to come within striking distance.
Instantly the boy recognized his opportunity. Seizing the foot with both his nimble hands, he twisted off the shoe and passed it across the aisle to a faithful clansman, who handed on the emblem of victory to another, who as speedily got rid of it in his turn. By the time Dunn recovered himself sufficiently to demand its restoration, the whereabouts of the shoe was actually unknown to the first plunderer. It ultimately found its way, wrapped in a page of a returned exercise, to the waste-basket.
The call to recitation broke in upon Dunn’s efforts, greatly handicapped by the presence of a teacher at the other end of the room, to make clear to Pirate Mike the fate in store for him if the shoe were not immediately returned to its owner. The fifth Latin rose with cheerful readiness and crowded to the door. Dunn fell in behind them, though he had no recitation at that time, hoping in the confusion to get his hand on his enemy. Once out of sight of the room teacher, he pressed on hotly, scattering the fifth like a flock of sheep, and with an imprecation on his lips reached for his quarry,—only to be met by the stern face of Mr. Westcott as he emerged from his room at the foot of the stairs.