Convinced but not satisfied, Taulbee frowned darkly. "Well, dad burn your looks, where'd you git all them marvles you been selling this spring," he demanded, "they never growed on trees." The finger was no longer pointing, it was doubled up in a fist under Geordie's nose.
At last came the hesitating, reluctant answer: "Me'n' Lige Munn and Harl Drake and Benoni Somers went pardners."
"You put up the marvles and them the fingers?"
"Yes, and they's the best players in school, and allus cleans out t'other boys; and I'm right smart of a good trader, and git a better price than they could; so they puts in all their time a-winning, and turns all the marvles over to me to sell; and then I git the halves on every marvle."
"And then you set up and tell her you haint played nary keep this school?"
"I haint never played none," reaffirmed Geordie, in conscious innocence; "I never toch my hand to nary keep this whole school!"
The whites of Taulbee's eyes were now red; he ground his teeth. "Dad swinge your ole grave-robber soul, I aim to kill you dead," he shouted, leaping across the table, and followed by every boy but Absalom in the direction of the unfortunate Geordie.
It was ten minutes before I, with the assistance of Absalom and a broomstick, rescued a torn and bleeding victim from the howling, threshing mass under which he was buried, and sent for the trained nurse.