“Why, I don’t know. Why not—well, why not forget it, Tubb? After all a fellow who does things like that harms himself more than he does any one else, and——”
“Yah!” interrupted Tubb rudely. “Sunday school stuff, Tucker! I’ll bet you wouldn’t talk that way if it was you who had half a dozen sore ribs some guy had given you!”
“Well, maybe I wouldn’t,” granted Toby, “but I’d hesitate a long time before I’d risk probation for the sake of fighting him! And that’s what you’d better do.”
“Listen here, Tucker,” replied the other earnestly. “I’m going to get even with that fellow. I didn’t give him any cause to kick my ribs in. Even if I had, he’d no right to do it when I was down like that. What I want to know is how you fight a fellow here. I guess there are fights: I never heard of a school where they didn’t pull ’em off now and then.” Tubb viewed Toby hopefully.
“Maybe there are,” said Toby, “but I’ve never seen one. I suppose fellows get off by themselves somewhere sometimes,” he continued vaguely. “But if faculty hears of it——”
“Have to risk that,” said Tubb, more cheerfully. He was silent a moment. Then: “Of course what I wanted to do was wait around at the gym this afternoon and hand him a few, but I had a hunch that Lyle or some one would be there and get peeved. So I didn’t. Then this evening I caught him grinning at me in commons once. That grin’s going to cost him something, believe me, Tucker!”
“But look here, Tubb,” said Toby practically, “Frick’s two years older than you, I guess, and he’s bigger and heavier, and fellows say he’s a scrapper. I don’t know how good you are, but——” Toby cast a dubious glance over the other’s rather meager frame—“it’s something to think about, isn’t it?”
“How long did you think about it when Frick got gay with you down at the field the other day?” asked Tubb, with a twinkle in his eye.
“Not at all,” answered Toby, smiling. “But then, there wasn’t time!”