“What for?” said Perry.
“Ah, that’s more than I know,” said Cyril; “and the next moment he caught it right in the centre of his—er—middle.”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Perry merrily.
“It knocked all the wind out of him for a minute, and then, as soon as he could speak, he was furious, and said I did it on purpose—in Spanish—and I said it was an accident that all people were liable to in cricket, and that they ought to be able to defend themselves. Then he said he was able to defend himself.”
“That meant fighting,” cried Perry, growing more interested.
“Of course it did, but I wasn’t going to notice it, for the mater said I was to be very careful not to get into any quarrel with the Spanish fellows, because they are none too friendly about my father being here. They’re jealous because he’s a foreigner, when all the time there isn’t a more splendid fellow living than my father,” cried the boy warmly. “You don’t half know him yet.”
“Well, what happened then?” said Perry, as he noted the warm glow in the boy’s cheeks and the flash of his eyes.
“Oh, Mariniaz appealed to three or four of the others, and they sided with him, and said that they saw me take a long breath and gather myself up and take a deadly aim at his chest, and then hurl the ball with all my might, as if I meant to kill him.”
“What rubbish!” cried Perry.
“Wasn’t it? You couldn’t teach chaps like that to play cricket, could you?”