“He’s our ghest,” he murmured thickly. “’Tain’t right, boys—’tain’t right! You may think it’s joke, but I shay it’s shame.”
“Why doesn’t some one smother that fool?” growled Tom Hackett. “He always was an ass!”
Frank put Ludley aside and finished making ready. Some one found him a pair of rubber-soled shoes, and these he put on.
Then they brought the gloves.
Instead of boxing gloves, such as are generally used for sparring, they were six-ouncers, the kind used in many prize fights.
“Hum!” said Merry, as he gravely surveyed the pair handed him. “Aren’t these a trifle light for a friendly go?”
“Oh, they’re all right!” exclaimed several of the students. “We box with them here.”
“If that is so,” said Merry, “I’ll raise—hic!—no further objection.”
Black Tom came unsteadily feeling his way out into the shed. He scratched his woolly head and gazed in a dazed way at Galway and then at Frank.
Suddenly he began to laugh.