"Now, Horace Elgert, I am tired of this rubbish. What do you mean by it?"
"Didn't I tell you to come and meet me the other side of the playground?"
"Yes. And I decline to do anything of the sort. When people want me, they generally come to me, not order me to go to them."
"Well, I have come: and now I am going to thrash you!"
"I see. Start right away; don't wait for me!"
Some of the Fourths laughed. This was quite unexpected. Elgert was manifestly disappointed, but he turned red.
"We don't generally fight here," he said. "Will you come over?"
"No, I will not. I will not budge an inch. I don't want to fight; but if you start it, it must be here. And if you don't stand aside and let us go on with our game there will be trouble!"
"You fellows can laugh!" suddenly blazed Elgert, turning towards the grinning Fourths. "A nice thing to laugh at! He has got the proper chum—that's one thing! We all know about Charlton, and why no one will chum with him; and this chap is not much better. I saw my pater at dinner-time, and a fine way he was in when I told him of the new boy we had.
"You know the yarn he told about his father disappearing? Where has he gone to? People don't disappear in England, unless they want to! My pater says that a burglar broke into our house, and that he fired at him and hit him; and he says, from the description, that the burglar must have been the man that came to Stow Ormond with this chap, and passed as his father, and——"