"Can't," said Ben, "can't oblige," and his fingers closed on the thin little ones crowding into them, as Pip ran up to his other side.
"And I think any one who wants to please Jasper," said Ben,—he hated to preach, but it must be done,—"had better take up this chap."
Tim coughed and stuck his hands deeply in his pockets.
"I'm going down this way," said Ben, striking off on a side path, and he marched off with pip.
"I never knew such a chap," Tim waited for a crowd of the boys who had joined in the game to come up; "he's been here a little more than one day, and he leads us all by the nose. Boys, we've just got to take up that Pip, and we might as well do it handsomely as not."
IX
WHAT A HOME-COMING
Van sprang off the car steps and rushed up tumultuously to Polly in the midst of the group come down to the railroad station to meet the boys.
"O dear," he grumbled in a loud voice, "now we can't have any Christmas at all."