THE pasty-faced youth who took a seat on the table and sat swinging his legs while he fished out of his pocket a gold-mounted cigarette case, angrily resented the imputation of Bully Carson.
“Aw, cut it out!” he snarled nastily. “My sister is too nice a girl to have comments made about her by a low bruiser like you!”
Bully Carson’s face flamed as red as his necktie; the veins on his forehead started, his hands closed into maullike fists, and he stepped forward; yet instantly he checked himself, and rattled out a wheezing laugh. He could not afford to offend this young fellow.
“Forget it!” he said in a tone of hoarse apology. “I didn’t mean nothin’, and, of course, I knew it wasn’t so even when I said it; I was only in a manner suggestin’ what others may think.”
Robert Realf stared at him repellently.
“Since you forgot yourself, and said that, I’ll simply explain that my sister is visiting with Nellie Stanley, at Mrs. Winfield’s, just as she did last winter. You know that Bob Stanley is a student in the academy here, and is her brother, and both Nellie and my sister are friends of Mrs. Winfield. Besides, I’m down here with her. We’ve got money to travel ’round with, and go where we like, when we want to; more money than you will ever see, Carson, though you cheat and steal for a hundred years.”
“Forget it!” said Carson, though the blood was in his face. “I didn’t mean anything at all, as I told you. Of course, I was too fresh.”
Then he mumbled something about having had a drink too much, which was the cause of it.
Kess was so interested that he almost forgot the sinister touch of the man behind him; for Carson’s intimation had been that Rhoda Realf was at Fardale in the hope that she was here to get to see Chip Merriwell.