Cecil Craig came apace, for he could see the dangling strap at a little distance. Hurriedly retying the horse, he was about to retrace his steps when he suddenly felt himself in the grip of an evidently hostile hand, securely attached from behind to the collar of his coat.
"Now you can ask me those questions if you like," he heard a rather hoarse voice saying; and writhing round he looked into a face flaming with a wrath that was rekindling fast.
Young Craig both squirmed and squealed; but the one was as fruitless as the other. Harvey was bent on dealing faithfully with him; and lack of spirit, rather than of strength, made the struggle a comparatively unequal one. After the preliminary application was completed, he dragged Craig to where he had hidden the rhubarb tarts, still crestfallen from solitary confinement.
"Why don't you make some more jokes about the tarts my mother made?" Harvey enquired hotly; "you were real funny about them just before dinner." This reference to his mother seemed to fan the flame of his wrath anew, and another application was the natural result.
"Let me go," Cecil gasped. "I was only joking—ouch! I was just joking, I say," as he tried to release himself from Harvey's tightening grip.
"So'm I," retorted Harvey; "just a piece of play, the same as yours—only we're kind o' slow at seeing the fun of it, eh?" shaking the now solemn humourist till his hair rose and fell—"I'd have seen the point a good deal quicker if my mother hadn't worked so hard," he went on, flushing with the recollection and devoting himself anew to the facetious industry. "Pick up those tarts," he thundered suddenly.
Cecil looked incredulously at his antagonist. One glance persuaded him and he slowly picked up one by the outer edge.
"Take 'em all—the whole three," Harvey directed in a low tense tone. Which Cecil immediately did, not deeming the time opportune to refuse.
"Now give them to your horse," Harvey said; "you know you said you'd a good mind to feed him with them."
"I won't do it," Cecil declared stoutly. "I'll fight before I do it."