'He'd better not try on that game, I tell you, the coward that he is!' growled Alick.
'I don't know about Mr. Price being the coward,' pointedly said Theo. 'It isn't usually the fashion among brave men for two to set on one, is it, boys dear?' she added tranquilly.
Geoff gasped. Then his mouth, opening to sharply retort, shut with a click. He knew that his sister, though only a girl, was perfectly right. It had been an unfair, uneven conflict. Theo put her finger on the blot with remarkable accuracy for a girl; two to one must always be unfair, and a rush of shame tingled over him.
Not so Alick. He would not allow himself to be convinced.
'I'd like to know what right has Price to grind us down?' he muttered, gloomily frowning at Theo. 'He's an oppressor, that's what he is! But I'll soon let him see; I'll pitch into him, if he dares to show his white face here again, I tell you! Down with tyrants!'
'He isn't likely to show his face here,' said Theo, loftily regarding the inflamed countenance of her brother. 'That is,' she continued, 'not unless he receives an ample apology from each of you for this morning's work.'
'Apology!' shouted—almost yelled—Alick. 'Never! Don't you believe it, Miss Theo! You think you can do most things, but you won't bend us to that!' Rub-a-dub on the dining-table hammered the furious boy's toes and heels, as he broke out into another hornpipe.
'Won't you come down, dears?' again pleaded Theo as gently as before. 'Come to the tea-house, and tell me exactly what the trouble was from the very beginning,' she said persuasively.
'Oh, we'll tell you!' eagerly assented the boys, with one voice; and scrambling down from the table, each slipped an arm through Theo's, and walked away with her, both talking at once, excitedly endeavouring to make the best of their case in her eyes. They were genuinely fond of their elder sister; principally, it may have been, because she never scolded or flouted them, however badly they behaved. Theo's way was different. It was by gentle means she sought to lead, not drive, her rebellious, hot-headed young brothers back to the path of duty from which they were so constantly straying.
'What did you want, did you say?' she asked, bewildered by the two angry voices full of complaint on either side of her.