"Then you're going to improve your mind?" asked Pudge.
"Aren't you coming?"
"My mind doesn't need improving," announced the fat youth, lolling back again and pulling the cap over his eyes.
As Pudge stretched out his short legs more comfortably, Horace and Kirby passed, one on either side of him. At a given signal from the former, they stopped, each seizing one of the fat youth's ankles. They started off at a trot, dragging Pudge with them over the smoothly slipping pine needles that covered the ground.
"Leggo! Stop it!" bawled Pudge as his coat crawled up his back and he lost his cap and a suspender button in his struggles. He flopped about like a sea turtle turned on its upper shell—and just as gracefully—to the delight of Ben Comas who followed, kicking his cousin's cap.
"You'd oughtn't to complain, Pudge," Ben said. "You're going without any exertion on your part."
"Hey! Quit, you fellers!" cried the fat lad. "What d'ye think I am? There goes another of my suspender buttons. Ouch! stop it——"
He managed to kick free of Kirby's hold, and the laughing Pence had to release the fat boy's other ankle to save himself from being kicked. Pudge scrambled up, breathing dire threatenings.
"How'd you think I'm going to hold up my pants—two buttons busted off?" he grumbled. "And they're lost, too."
"Use a belt, like a normal human being, son," advised the much amused Pence.