"Of coorse, we ken, ye hae only to ask him!" they said, with one solid voice of general concurrence.
Celie felt herself beginning to burn low down on her neck, and it made her angry to think that in a minute more she would blush like a great baby just out of the senior class of the Ladies' College. The boys watched her maliciously till she looked really distressed, and then Cleg struck gallantly into the breach.
"Chaps," he cried, "I think we should ask for oorsels. We are gaun to elec' a commy-tee and run the show. Dinna let us begin by troublin' Miss Tennant. We'll gang an' ask oorsels. Gin ye are feared, I'm no!"
Crash! came a stone through the window. All leapt to their feet in a moment.
"It's that dirty scoondrel frae the Potter-raw. Oot after him!" cried Cleg.
Whereupon the newly constituted Knuckle Dusters' Club tumultuously detached itself for police duty. There was a scurry along the highway, a fight at a street corner. Two boys got a black eye apiece. A policeman was assaulted in the half-humorous way peculiar to the district. A letter-deliverer sat down suddenly on the pavement, to the delay of Her Majesty's mails, and after five well-spent and happy minutes, the Club re-entered, wiping its brow, and Cleg cried:
"Three cheers for the Knuckle Dusters' Club! Miss Celie to be the president for ever an' ever. We'll meet the morn's nicht to elec' the commy-tee. And there's twenty meenits left for Jacob!"
And so the Knuckle Dusters' Club sat patiently down to endure its Scripture lesson.