“Aren’t you ashamed to fight?” asked the girl, reprovingly.
“Nix,” replied Tommy. “A feller ain’t no good that can’t fight. Me brudder Bill says that Lefty can fight jest as well as he can pitch, an’ that’s goin’ some.”
“I am afraid,” said Janet to Locke, “that you have set a bad example.”
“But not willingly,” he quickly declared. “I hope you do not think I would engage in a public fist fight from inclination. I assure you that the knowledge that you witnessed that wretched affair has caused me no little mortification.”
“You were justified,” she said. “I saw it all, and there was no manly way by which you could have avoided it.”
CHAPTER XXXII
THE INITIALS
He thanked her for the words, and secured his hat and book as they walked slowly toward the log. Tommy was again blowing away at his harmonica, Jimmy was sulking, and the others fell to amusing themselves with a game of hide and seek. Janet sat on the log, and Locke seated himself near her.
“What were you reading?” she asked curiously.
He gave her the book, and she glanced at it. It was a well-thumbed volume of “The Merchant of Venice.”