“It’s all off,” he said, addressing Henshaw rather more than David. “If you fellows have so much energy and fight to get rid of get out and play football. One of you owes the other an apology, and he knows mighty well that he does. When he makes it there will be no occasion for anything further.”
“Oh, let them go to it, Harry!” cried a disappointed spectator. “It’ll do them good.”
“I’ll fight anybody that tries to make them fight,” replied Carson belligerently, and the crowd laughed. “I’ll fight them if they try to fight,” he added. “And I’ll say that one of these two fellows, if he doesn’t apologize to the other for his insulting remarks, deserves a licking—whether he gets it or not.”
David spoke up crisply, “I have nothing to apologize for.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then Henshaw said in a rather subdued voice: “I have. I beg your pardon, Ives. I was insulting, and you had a right to resent it.”
David put out his hand, Henshaw took it, and Carson administered to each of them a loud and stinging clap on the bare back, which drew an “Ow!” from Henshaw and a delighted guffaw from the crowd.
The two participants in the bloodless encounter put on their clothes, the meeting broke up, and in groups of twos and threes the fellows took their way back to the school.
Ruth came out of the rectory as David and Monroe and Wallace were going by.
“Why, you weren’t gone very long on your walk, were you?” she said.