“Here, here, boys! Do you know what you are doing?” the young captain exclaimed.
“What’s the trouble?”
“He’s got to sign it!” shouted Moses, hotly.
“Yes, he’s got to!” yelled Lewis.
“Yes, Mack, help us make him sign it!” chimed in Molly Royce.
“Be quiet, Molly!” replied Marion, putting his impetuous young sister aside with one hand as he strode nearer. “We will see about this. Let go, Lewis! Let go, Mose! Master Hempstead, what’s the matter here?”
The master, who had been kicking hard and hitting right and left at his assailants, recovered his dignity and struck an attitude.
“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth is such ingratitude!” he cried, in injured accents. “These whom I have taught with so great patience, whose dull wits I have fostered, lo, they have lifted up the heel against me!”
“But what is it, Master Hempstead, that they want you to sign?” asked Marion, laughing in spite of himself.
“An exorbitant demand! Preposterous extortion! Stuck under my very nose at the schoolhouse door on an illiterate chip!”