The others were frightened, pulled Jaap's sleeve.
"That's nothing to do with it," growled Jaap, taken aback. "You say you're going to punch my head."
But Addie, in a flash, remembered the boy and that shout in the street near the school:
"Out with it!" he cried. "Why do you call me an Italian?"
Chris and Piet tried to smooth things over:
"Come, don't bother; he's talking rot."
"But why an Italian?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing!"
"Yes, there's something. I mean to know!"
"Keep your hair on; it's nothing."