“I can’t allow this, boys! Stop it at once; and never let me see it again. I keep a school for boys, not for wild beasts. Look at each other and be ashamed of yourselves.”
“You let me go, and I’ll knock him down again,” shouted Dan, sparring away in spite of the grip on his collar.
“Come on, come on, I ain’t thrashed yet!” cried Emil, who had been down five times, but did not know when he was beaten.
“They are playing be gladdy—what-you-call-’ems, like the Romans, Uncle Fritz,” called out Demi, whose eyes were bigger than ever with the excitement of this new pastime.
“They were a fine set of brutes; but we have learned something since then, I hope, and I cannot have you make my barn a Colosseum. Who proposed this?” asked Mr. Bhaer.
“Dan,” answered several voices.
“Don’t you know that it is forbidden?”
“Yes,” growled Dan, sullenly.
“Then why break the rule?”