Before he had finished speaking he had started 178 toward the locker rooms at the rear. Denny he ignored as though he did not exist. He went without a sound in his rubber-soled shoes. Bobby Ogden, waking suddenly from his trancelike condition, leaped to his feet and ran after him. Hogarty halted at the pressure of the boy’s pink-nailed fingers on his arm and wheeled to show a face that was startlingly white and strained.
“Why, you great big kid!” Bobby Ogden flung at him. “You big infant! You’re really sore! Don’t you know he didn’t mean anything. He’s only a kid himself––and you egged him into it!”
“Is he?”
From that gently rising inflection alone Ogden knew that interference was absolutely hopeless.
“Is he? Well, he’s old enough to seem to know what he wants. And he’s going to get it––see? He’s going to get it––and––get––it––good! No man ever flung it into my face that I didn’t give him a chance––not and got away with it.”
Hogarty glanced meaningly down at the restraining hand upon his sleeve and Ogden removed it hastily. He stood in dismayed indecision until the ex-lightweight had disappeared before he turned toward Young Denny, who had been watching in silence his effort at intervention. Denny had not moved. Ogden’s almost girlishly modeled face was more than apprehensive as he stepped up to him.
“He’s mad,” he stated flatly. “You’ve got him peeved for keeps. And I guess you’ve let yourself in for quite a merry little session, too, unless––unless”––he hesitated, peering curiously in Denny’s grave face, “unless you want to make a nice quiet little exit before he comes back with Sutton. You can, you know, and––and it may save you quite a little––er––discomfort in the long run. Sutton––well, the least I can say of Sutton is that he’s inclined to be a trifle rough!”
Ogden saw that slow smile returning; he saw it start far back in the steady eyes and spread until it touched the corners of the other boy’s lips again.
“You mean––leave?” Young Denny asked.