"Why, Billie Denman!" she cried, shocked and anxious. "What has happened to you? Run over?"
"No, Florrie," he answered, painfully. "I've been licked. I had a fight."
"But don't you know it's wrong to fight, Billie?"
"Maybe," answered Denman, trying to get more blood from his face to the already saturated handkerchief. "But we all do wrong—sometimes."
The child planted herself directly before him, and looked chidingly into his discolored and disfigured face.
"Billie Denman," she said, shaking a small finger at him, "of course I'm sorry, but, if you have been fighting when you know it is wrong, why—why, it served you right."
Had he not been aching in every joint, his nose, his lips, and his eyes, this unjust speech might have amused him. As it was he answered testily:
"Florence Fleming, you're only a kid yet, though the best one I know; and if I should tell you the name I was called and which brought on the fight, you would not understand. But you'll grow up some day, and then you will understand. Now, remember this fight, and when some woman, or possibly some man, calls you a—a cat, you'll feel like fighting, too."
"But I wouldn't mind," she answered, firm in her position. "Papa called me a kitten to-day, and I didn't get mad."
"Well, Florrie," he said, wearily, "I won't try to explain. I'm going away before long, and perhaps I won't come back again. But if I do, there'll be another fight."