"They frowed me down the well, and I went splass! Yes, indeedy!" interrupted Toady Lion, who had imagination.
"Then Donald, our black pet lamb, that is, came into the court, and they all ran away after him and caught him. First he knocked down one or two of them, and then they put a rope round his neck and began to take rides on his back."
"Yes, and he bleated and 'kye-kyed' just feeful!" whimpered Toady Lion, beginning to weep all over again at the remembrance.
But the Smith of the imperial race only clenched his torn hands and looked at his bruised knuckles.
"So Hugh John said he would kill them if they did not let Donald go, and that he was a soldier. But they only laughed louder, and one of them struck him across the lip with a stick—I know him, he's the butch——"
"Shut up, Pris!" shouted Hugh John, with sudden fierceness, "it's dasht-mean to tell names."
"Be quiet, sir," said his father severely; "let your sister finish her story in her own way."
But for all that there was a look of some pride on his face. At that moment Mr. Picton Smith was not sorry to have Hugh John for a son.
"Well," said Priscilla, who had no such scruples as to telling on her enemies, "I won't tell if you say not. But that was the boy who hurt Donald the worst."
"Well, I smashed him for that!" muttered Napoleon Smith.