The two boys tore up the street, Bobby after them. Unfortunately, Bobby ran head-first into an old gentleman who, before he let him go, collared him and read him a lecture on the rights of people in the street. This gave Tim and Charlie a chance to hide behind some bushes on a vacant lot.
"Jump on him when he comes along," advised Tim, who was not a fair fighter.
So when Bobby came running by, for he did not know how far up the street the boys had gone, Tim and Charlie pounced on him and rolled him in the snow.
"None of that," said a strange voice. "Two to one's no fair. One of you leave off, or I'll stop the fight."
The strange voice belonged to a high-school boy, Stanley Reeves, and both Tim and Charlie knew he was a member of the gymnasium wrestling team and quite capable of stopping any small-boy fight.
"You're too old to fight a boy of that size, anyway," declared Stanley, surveying Tim with disgust.
"But I'm going to punch him," announced Bobby heatedly.
"Oh, you are?" said Reeves with interest. "Go ahead, then, and I'll sit here and keep an eye on this chicken to see that he doesn't pitch in at the wrong moment"
Reeves took a firm hold on Charlie's coat collar and backed him off to one side.
"Wash his face for him—it needs it," the high-school lad went on to
Bobby.