“I didn’t promise,” denied Tubb. “I said maybe I’d—Anyhow, I’m not going to do anything; I just want to let him understand——”
“You keep your mouth closed, Tubb.” Toby took his arm tightly. “No nonsense now!”
“We-ell——” Tubb eyed the approaching couple irresolutely. Frick’s companion was a stranger to both, a chap whose name Toby believed to be Cotting, a tall, lanky youth with a wide mouth and outstanding ears. Just now he appeared to be intensely amused at something Frick was saying, and his high-pitched laughter, accompanied by surreptitious glances at Toby and George, was too much for the latter. Wresting his arm from Toby’s restraining clutch, Tubb swung off to meet the others, who were passing a dozen yards up the beach. Toby followed more slowly, thinking unflattering things of Tubb.
“Talking about me, were you?” challenged Tubb from a few paces away. Cotting shot a startled and questioning glance at Frick. Evidently Cotting had no desire for trouble. Frick, however, pushed forward swaggeringly.
“What if I was?” he demanded, scowling.
“Don’t do it!” Tubb’s voice had an unsuspected edge, and Frick stared an instant in surprise.
“Calm yourself, kid, calm yourself,” he laughed finally. “I talk about any one I like to. Then what?”
Toby “butted in” at that moment, nodding coldly to Frick and joining arms with Tubb again. “Come on, Tubb, let’s hurry,” he urged.
“That’s right, Tucker,” said Frick approvingly. “He might get hurt if he stays around here.”
Cotting had stopped a pace or two away and was digging a hole in the sand with the toe of one shoe in a very absorbed way. Toby found time to be amused at his tactful withdrawal.