All at once a flame ran up the towering bonfire and belched toward the sky.
"Are you going to let them get you?" said McCarty.
"Me? Oh, Lord, no—I can't make a speech!"
"Neither can I!" said Tough mendaciously. "I wouldn't go back there for the world!"
The thin posts stood out against the sheet of flame, gaunt, rigid, imbued with a certain grandeur.
"I say, Dink," said McCarty.
"Yes?"
"I say, we're going to have some great old fights together. But, do you know, I sort of feel after all, this will be the best."
Then a chorus of thin shrieks rose about them. They started half-heartedly to run, pretending fury. A swarm of determined boyhood rushed over them and flung them kicking, struggling into the air.
"Tough McCarty and Dink Stover!"