He need not have been alarmed, for there was not a ray visible, and even if there had been, the light cast by the opened lanthorn would have hidden it; but he sat there trembling all the same, and with a curious sensation of suffocation rising in his throat, as he softly altered his position and loosened his hands, ready to make a spring at his enemy if it should become necessary.
“Well, I do call that grumpy. Keeps on bringing you nuts, and you’re so snarky that you won’t so much as give one back the shells. Now, then, where’s that basket?”
Archy felt that he must speak, or else the boy would go in search of it.
“I haven’t done with it.”
“But I want it to take back.”
“It has some of the dinner in it.”
“Well, then, let’s empty it out.”
“No,” said Archy, sitting up angrily; “you can’t have it now.”
“Oh,” said Ram, “that’s it, is it? Suppose I say I will have it?”
“If you don’t take yourself off,” cried Archy, “I’ll break your head with one of these pieces of stone.”