"I can jump and touch the ceiling," said I; and did so.
She strove in vain, then called me dunce, and vowed what brains I had were in my feet. For that, and because she pushed me, I seized the chalk and wrote high on the slate:
"Silver Heels is Mohock she toes in like ducks."
She caught up the buckskin to wipe out the taunt, jostling me till the ferret in my pocket jumped out and ran round and round the room.
I jostled her; then she gave me a blow and a quick shove, whereupon I stumbled, pulling her to the floor to rub her face with chalk. She twisted and turned, kicking and striking while I rubbed chalk into her skin, till of a sudden she coiled up and bit me clean through the hand.
I was on my feet with a bound; she also, all white in the face and her eyes aflame.
The blood began welling up, running into my palm and along the fingers to the floor. At that same instant I heard the door of the nursery open, and I knew that Sir William was coming through the hall to the school-room.
From instinct I thrust my wounded hand into my breeches-pocket.
"Don't tell!" whispered Silver Heels, in a fright; "don't tell—and here is the jack-knife."
She thrust it into my right hand, then sped across the floor to the open window, and over the sill, dropping light as a cat on the grass below.