"The worst thing you can do for Jasper King is to carry on like this," said Ben, firmly. "Come, now, wipe your eyes," which Pip at once proceeded to do on his jacket sleeve, "and take your candy," and Ben dropped the little packets of sweets back into their owner's hands. "I'll tell Jasper all you wanted to do for him; it was nice of you." Ben was astounded to find how fast he was getting on in conversation. Really he hadn't supposed he could talk so much till he got this Pip on his hands. Meantime, his grasp still on the small shoulder, he was marching him off, and downstairs, and across the school yard, not exactly knowing what in the world to do with him after all.
"Great Scott! If that Pepper boy hasn't got Pip!" A dozen heads, their owners just released from recitation, were thrust up to the windows of a class room. Meantime Pip, in the familiar borders of the school yard, and remembering everything again with a rush, began to snivel once more, so that Ben was at his wits' end, and seeing a boy a good deal bigger than his companion coming down the long path, he hailed him unceremoniously.
"See here, can't you do something for him?" Ben bobbed his head down at the cowering shoulders. "Can't you play ball with him?" He said the first thing that came into his head.
"You must excuse me," said the boy, with an aristocratic air, and, not knowing Ben in the least, he looked him all over contemptuously. "King was my great friend. I don't know this little cad at all, nor you either," and he walked on.
Pip's head slunk down deeper yet between his shoulders at that, and he snivelled worse than ever.
"Come along, I'll play with you myself," said Ben. "Got a ball, Pip?"
"Ye-es," said Pip, between a snivel and a gasp, "but the fellows wo-on't let you play with me. O dear, boo-hoo-hoo!"
"Oh, yes, they will," said Ben. "Come, let's get your ball. Where's your room?"
So Pip, seeing that he was to have company all the way, led off somehow to his room, and the little wads of candy were placed in the bureau drawer. Once the ball was in Ben's hands he managed to follow him to a corner of the playground where, without any more words, Ben soon had him throwing and catching in such a rapid fashion there was no time for tears or anything else but the business in hand.
Meantime the boy they had met on the long path had marched off, very angry at having been spoken to by such a common-looking person in company with Pip, whom nobody had liked from the first, certainly not after the injury to their favorite, King. And nursing his wrath he projected himself into the class room where the heads of the boys were still at the windows.