Still the teacher spoke very gently, and turned a little pale. The persuasive words and the slight paleness misled Jack. He thought his victory was to be so easily won, there would not even be any glory in it. He smiled and ate, quite at his ease.
"You will come here whether you please or not," was the next sentence from the teacher's desk. Jack cut off another mouthful and sat still.
Then, he never knew how it was, but suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, he felt himself pulled from his seat out into the middle of the floor while knife and apple flew from his hand. He kicked, he struggled, he tried to strike; but an iron grasp held his wrists. The strong muscles of the stroke-oar at Harvard did good service. The handsome face was pale, but the lips were set like steel, and the cool eyes never wavered as they fixed and held those of the young bully. Then suddenly he whipped from his pocket a ball of strong fish-line and bound the struggling wrists tightly, and, pushing a chair toward his captive, said, coolly,—
"I want nothing more of you till after school. You can sit or stand, as you please. Now I will hear the first class in arithmetic."
There was a strange hush in the school, and every scholar knew who was master.
When all the rest had gone, the teacher turned to Jack Ramsdale.
"I took you a little by surprise," he said. "Perhaps you are not yet satisfied that I am stronger than you."
"Yes, I'm satisfied," Jack answered. "I ain't so mean but what I'm willing to own beat when it's done fair and square."