“I wish you’d keep your tongue inside your teeth, Nic Braydon!” cried the boy fiercely. “You won’t be happy till I’ve given you another licking. Look here what you’ve made me do!”
“I didn’t make you do it,” said the first speaker. “Why don’t you let the birds alone?”
“Because, if you please, Miss Braydon,” said the bigger lad mincingly, “I’m not so good as you are. Oh dear, no! I’m going to take that nest of young blackbirds because I want them to bring up and keep in a cage. I’m going to transport them to the shed in the playground.”
The first boy winced sharply at his companion’s words, and the four lads present burst into a derisive laugh at his annoyance; but he smothered it down, and said quietly:— “Then you may as well leave them alone, for they’re not blackbirds.”
“Yes, they are, stoopid.”
“No, they’re not.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I found the nest when it was first built, and saw the eggs and the old bird sitting.”
“Oh, that’s it, is it? Oh, I say, isn’t he a nice, good little boy? He doesn’t want me to take the young birds because he wants to steal them himself.”
The others laughed in their thoughtlessness as their schoolfellow winced again, and Brian Green still hung on to the bank, sucking the scratches on his bleeding hand and grinning with satisfaction at the annoyance his innuendoes caused.