'You take care of her!' Tom sneered, with that supercilious air he always assumed toward those he considered his inferiors. Why, you and your grandmother can't take care of yourselves, or you couldn't if it wasn't for Uncle Arthur. Mother says so. You wouldn't have any house to live in if he hadn't given it to you,'
Harold's arms were unfolded now and the doubled fists were in his pockets clenching themselves tighter and tighter as he advanced to Tom, who, remembering his black eye, began to back towards the nurse for safety.
'It's a lie, Tom Tracy,' Harold said. 'Mr. Arthur does not take care of us. We do it ourselves, and have for ever so long. He did give us the house, but it ain't for you to twit me of that. Whose house is this, I'd like to know? It isn't yours, nor your father's, and there isn't a thing in it yours. It is all Mr. Arthur's.'
'Wall, we are to be his hares—Jack, and Maude, and me. Mother says so,' Tom stammered out, while Jerry, who had been looking intently, first at one boy, and then at the other, called out in her own language:
'Nein, nein, nein,' and struck her hand toward Tom.
'What does she mean by her "Nine, nine, nine,'" he asked of Miss Howard, who replied that she thought it was the German for 'No, no, no,' and that the child probably did not approve of him.
Tom knew she did not, and though she was only a baby, be felt chagrined and irritable. Had he dared, he would have struck Harold, who asked him what he meant by being his uncle's hare. But he was afraid of Miss Howard, and remembering it must be time for the inquest, he slipped from the room, whispering fiercely to Harold as he passed him:
'Darn you, Hal Hastings, I'll thrash you yet.'
'Let me know when you are ready, and also when you get to be your uncle's hare,' was Harold's taunting reply, as the door closed upon the discomfited Tom.