The other boy looked at the battered pair, and let them pass on in front, following afterwards with the others.
“It’s the proper thing to do, isn’t it?”
“Yes, with some fellows,” said Tomlins, who was listening. “I should do it to either of you chaps if I’d licked you.”
The pair looked at each other and laughed.
“Hark at Mouse Tomlins,” said one of them.
“Ah, you wait. I shall get bigger some day, and then I shall do just as Convict Braydon does; but I shouldn’t to old Green. You see if he don’t hit foul before long, and serve poor old Convict out.”
“Don’t you be so fond of calling him Convict; he doesn’t like it,” said Braydon’s second.
“Well, he shouldn’t be a convict then,” retorted the boy.
“And you shouldn’t be a cocky, conceited little donkey,” said the elder boy.
“But I’m not,” said the little fellow, laughing; and then wincing and crying, “Oh, my leg!”