"I can't help it, Tom. That impudent little Hollister Pyle won't give me a moment's peace."
"What does he do?" Emmet catechised grimly.
"He makes a grab for me every time I pass him on the stairs; that is, when his mother is n't looking."
"Why don't you turn around and break his face?" he demanded angrily, lapsing into graphic vernacular. The suggestion was obviously too absurd to need reply. "I 'd like to get my hands on the young whelp," he went on, squaring his shoulders. "I would n't leave a whole bone in his body."
"You can't do that, Tom, dear," she expostulated, in gentle alarm.
"No, I can't," he admitted reluctantly. "It would n't do to be pinched for assault and battery only a fortnight before election. I won't write him a threatening anonymous letter, either. That is n't my way of doing business. I tell you, Lena, you 've got to get rid of him, yourself."
"I will," she declared, with what was, for her, a tone of decision. "I 'm going to leave to-morrow."
"That is n't getting rid of him; that's running away," he fumed, profoundly dissatisfied. "You 'll meet the same sort of thing in the next place. Why don't you stay and fight it out?"
"I don't like the girls, either," she explained. "They 're all against me."
"A lot of cats," he muttered. "But where are you going?"