“Oh! beauty!” he cried; and then, as he began to munch, he glanced down at the pit he had excavated with his keen teeth right to the core. “Er! Yah!” he cried, spitting out the piece. “Why, it’s all maggoty!” and he threw the pear back with excellent aim; but it was deftly caught, and returned in a way that would have won praise at cricket. Joe’s aim was excellent, too; but when a boy is supporting himself by resting his elbows on the coping of a high stone-wall, he is in no position for fielding either a pear or a ball. So the pear struck him full on the front of the straw hat he wore, and down he went with a rush, while Gwyn ran to the front of the wall, climbed up quickly, and looked over into the lane, laughing boisterously.
“Got it that time, Joey,” he cried.
“All right, I’ll serve you out for it. Give us another pear.”
The request was attended to, the fruit being hurled down, but it was cleverly caught.
“Why this is maggoty, too.”
“Well, I didn’t put the maggots there; cut the bad out. The dropped ones are all like that.”
“Go and pick me a fresh one, then.”
“Not ripe, and father does not like me to pick them. That’s a beauty.”
“Humph—’tain’t bad. But I say, come on.”
“What are you going to do?”