"You can butt in later," said he, "and I'll come more than half-way to give you all the chance you want. Just now I'm going to have my say, Dace Perry, and I don't think"—Matt's voice was like velvet, but it cut like steel—"I don't think you're going to interfere."
"We've got Perry's side of it," said "Ratty" Spangler, a youth well nicknamed, "and that's enough for us. Eh, boys?"
The chorus of affirmatives was short one voice—that of Splinters.
"If I'm in on this," spoke up Splinters, "we play the game right or we don't play it at all." He fronted Matt. "Perry says, King," he went on, "that you've had a grouch against him for a long while, and that you tried to work it off by taking him from behind and slamming him into the road."
"I did have a grouch and I did slam him into the road," said Matt. "If Chub had been around I'd have left it to him—but Chub wasn't handy."
Then, briefly, Matt told of the affair at the gate. Chub growled angrily and sprang forward, only to be caught by his chum and pushed back.
"Wait!" cautioned Matt. "I guess you'll get all the rough-house you want, Chub, before we're done."
A chorus of jeers came from Perry's followers—Splinters excepted.
"That'll do me," said Splinters, turning on his heel and starting off.
"Where you going, Tuohy?" shouted Perry.