"Tomorrow, if not before, I shall be alone," he announced, "Well, I shall be the senior then, with no small-hearted fellows to show how much fear there is about."
The man took a step in his direction.
"What do you mean?" he blurted out, making a threatening gesture.
For reply the boy coolly picked up a pitchfork, and assumed a defiant attitude. He was nearly sixteen now, and although small was muscular and as quick as lightning.
"What is your Honourable intention?" he inquired mockingly, making a thrust or two in the air in the manner of native gymnasts as if he proposed to impale his adversary. "Do you wish to fight?"
The man eyed him for a few seconds. Then, in the face of this determined attitude, he retreated, cursing his opponent under his breath. Wang the Ninth threw down his pitchfork and went on with his work.
"A dog like the rest," he remarked, now thoroughly aroused. "He will disappear too. Who cares! Look here—you fellow—come near me again and I will hurl a brick in your face. Such as you are not required—your places will be filled when the appointed hour comes."
He began mixing the feed in basket after basket with the skill of long practice. The ponies, tied to a long rope stretched across the stable-yard, eyed this process anxiously with much whinnying and stamping of hoofs.
When he had finished he was tired and sweating profusely, but pride kept him from confessing that the work was too much. He seated himself on a watering-trough, and stripping off his well-worn coat, pinched the brown skin on his arms and chest in a mechanical way. Presently he sighed as he realized that the last man had also disappeared.
"It's a bad business," he remarked aloud.