“For a walk,” answered Wilkins, with a warning glance at Hector. It would have been awkward if the principal had heard that they had been compelled to eke out their meager dinner at a restaurant.
“Well, Jim wants you. Leastways, he wants Roscoe.”
Bates looked as if he expected Roscoe would immediately hasten to comply with the wishes of the redoubtable Jim.
“If he wants me, he can come to me,” said Hector, independently.
“But I say, that won’t do. Jim won’t be satisfied.”
“Won’t he? I don’t know that that particularly concerns me.”
“Shall I tell him that?”
“If you choose.”
Bates looked as if Hector had been guilty of some enormity. What, defy the wishes, the mandates, of Jim Smith, the king of the school and the tyrant of all the small boys! He felt that Hector Roscoe was rushing on his fate.
“I advise you to come,” he said, “Jim’s mad with you already, and he’ll lick you worse if you send him a message like that.”