“Gee! Not the Fish?”
“Yep. Kid wouldn’t have cared if it had been Sally or Belle, they’re both dead gone on him; but Fishie’s different.”
“So that’s—”
“Go on, Billy! Answer him!” cried several of Jim’s opponents.
Billy stepped in front of the crowd, which shifted restlessly, and waited a moment looking them over, trying to arrange his thoughts so that they might carry weight. He had no liking for the fight his mates were forcing on him. He knew the Kid’s “line-up” was against the best of the school, including the girls; knew that his methods were, to say the least, unpleasant, and important enough to cause anxiety to the Principal.
Yet Billy was no shirk. He could think on foot better than most of the students; and when his enthusiasm was aroused no one better loved a “scrap” of wits.
He began slowly: “There are several questions we must each put up squarely to ourselves before we can rightly answer Mr. Barney. First, what’s a school for?”
“Come off!” growled Jim. “Stick to—”
“Shut up, you!” shouted Redtop, who had grown in size and muscle till he was a force Jim respected. “Billy didn’t interrupt you. Be game!”
The Kid subsided. He prided himself on allowing fair play to all.