“No, I never!” rejoined Rex, red with rage. “It’s all very well for you to laugh, when you’ve been climbing trees all your life. Anyhow, I wouldn’t have silly ginger curls like yours for something. Does your mother put them in curl-papers every night?”
The bitterness of this insult sent the blood to Billy’s face.
“No, she doesn’t—an’ I’ll fight you if you say that again!”
Every vestige of his society manner had departed from Rex. He danced about on the grass, chanting derisively.
“Yah, Curly! Who’s got ginger curls? Silly old Curly—won’t the boys laugh at him when he goes to school!”
“Not as much as they’ll laugh at you if you try to climb!” retorted Billy, at the top of his voice. But Rex apparently did not hear. He danced and yelled with unabated vigour.
“Curly, Curly Weston! Curly, Curly Weston! Who goes to bed in curl-papers every night?”
“I’ll teach you!” said Billy fiercely. He came down the tree like an avalanche, dropping from bough to bough until he landed on the grass. His fists were clenched at his sides. It would have been difficult to say which face was the redder.
“Will you fight?”
“I don’t fight girls with silly curls,” said Rex—and realizing that he had made an unexpected burst of poetry, was correspondingly uplifted, and chanted wildly, “I—don’t—fight—girls— With—sil-ly—curls” again and again, ducking to avoid a sudden blow from Billy. Then another, better aimed, caught him on the shoulder, and from that instant neither manners nor melody remained to Master Rex Forester. He became primitive boy. Hammer and tongs they fought each other under the tree—slipping on squashed apricots, stumbling and recovering, exchanging thudding blows with their hard young fists.