“Yes, that’s the way,” grumbled Harry, his mouth full of bread, and his lips smeary and sticky with honey—“that’s the way; finish, and go to bed; finish, and go into the garden; finish, and see what the men are doing; it is always go, go, go, from morning till night.”
“Will you be quiet, and let other people hear themselves talking?” said Bessie, sharply.
“There are not many that would care to hear you talk, at any rate,” retorted Master Marsden; “it is gab—gab—gab; bub—a bub—a bub—wherever you are, just like a meat-fly, or a wasp, or a mosquito.”
“I declare, Harry, I will write to your papa,” averred Bessie, solemnly.
“Write—who cares—and send somebody to read it, will you? We always call yours fat writing at home, and pa says if there was many hands like it, ink could not be made fast enough to supply people. Writing, do you call it? I could write as well with a paste-brush.”
“Are you going to be quiet, Harry, or are you not?” asked Bessie, taking a step towards him; “for, if you make another saucy speech, I will box your ears, as sure as my name is Bessie Ormson.”
“Who gave you that name?” mocked the boy; whereupon Bessie proved as good as her word, and, seizing him, was about to administer condign punishment, when Harry cried out—
“If you do—if you do—I’ll make a noise, and then Mrs. Dudley will come down to know what is the matter, and then I’ll tell her, and then she’ll be angry with you, for she said nobody was to speak crossly to me while I stayed in the house.”
“It is quite true,” Agnes said, in answer to Bessie’s look of inquiry. “She thought we were not kind to him, and scolded him about Lally; and in the middle of all her own trouble, of course, she had time to consider Harry. You see the result.”
“And pray, Harry, how long are you going to stay in the house?” inquired Bessie.