"Good idea," said Dave. "Set Allan on playing Osbody, and we'll all stand round to watch."
Shy Allan hastily declined the honour, whereupon Robin, having waited for the hubbub to subside, gave his opinion.
"Cheek in chunks, but artful—particularly artful," he said. "We don't want to play the Squirms at games. We don't want to sit in the same room with them. We'd rather play snakes-and-ladders with the Tinker's flamingoes at the Zoo."
"We would indeed!" cried Will Scarlet. "Send him a snorting answer, Robin."
"Refuse the challenge, do you mean?" queried Robin.
"I should say so, thumbs down."
Robin shook his head sadly. "We can't," he groaned. "If we did, they'd never afterwards cease yapping at us. Oh, yes, I can see you staring at me, but what would you say, chaps, if Osbody put up his dukes to me in the Shrubbery and sang out 'Come on'?"
"We'd tell you to go for him, Robin, like old steam."
"Just so. It would be a challenge, and you'd expect me to take it. If he said, 'I'll race you up the Moston Church-side to the steeple', daft though that would be, I'd have to climb with him. Twig what I mean, boys? The Merry Men's reputation is at stake. We cannot refuse."
Many of them decidedly differed from this opinion. Why, they argued, should they give the Squirms the chance of scalping them in a tournament of Osbody's own choosing? But Robin was not to be shaken.