"Hook it?" repeated Cummles furiously.
"Yes—hook it, scoot, buzz off, vamoose!"
"And mind the step," added Patch thoughtfully.
Cummles gave a sort of howl. He dived forward, seeking to upset the counter by lifting a table-leg; but Fane, vaulting over the obstruction, landed heavily on his back and bowled him over with no ceremony at all.
"Ow! Oof!" howled the bully. "Gerroff! Lemme get up!"
"Dear me—I didn't notice you there," said Fane sweetly. "Dropped something?"
Cummles, his face as black as thunder, jumped up and faced his tormentor in a furious rage. He drew back his right arm, as if to swing for the other's face.... Fane eyed him calmly.
At last, "All right—we'll see!" fumed the bully with sharp realization that he did not care to come to blows with the bully-killer. Those small, hard, knuckly fists of Fane's were too damaging to be rashly invited. "We'll see!"
And Cummles made the best of a bad scene by striding off without another glance at anyone.
The Busy Bee had made a sensation, there was no doubt. The reproduced photograph of the Cripples, labelled "The Martyrs' Meeting: Cummles and Co., and their Ju-Ju," together with the satirical article that accompanied it, was a journalistic "boom" of the first water. And Cummles and Co. raged impotently. They could not prevent the sale of the Busy Bee, and the whole school was presently laughing at them.