“Suppose you don’t?”

“He’ll give you a thrashing.”

“Does his uncle allow that?”

“Yes; I think he rather likes it.”

“Don’t the boys resist?”

“It won’t do any good. You see, Jim’s bigger than any of us.”

Hector took a good look at this redoubtable Jim Smith.

He was rather loosely made, painfully homely, and about five feet nine inches in height. Nothing more need be said, as, in appearance, he closely resembled his uncle.

Jim Smith soon gave Hector an opportunity of verifying the description given of him by Wilkins.

The boy at the bat had struck a ball to the extreme boundary of the field. The fielder at that point didn’t go so fast as Jim, who was pitcher, thought satisfactory, and he called out in a rough, brutal tone: