Page:Dave Porter in the South Seas.djvu/22

6 "Humph! He had better not!" muttered Plum, with a scowl. "If he does" The bully did not finish.

"I hope there is no more trouble in the air," was Dave's comment.

"There will be trouble, if Hamilton opens his trap. I won't allow anybody in this school to talk about me, and all of you had better understand it," and the bully glared at the others defiantly.

"I am sure I don't know what you are talking about," said Dave. "I haven't said anything about you."

"And you haven't heard anything?" inquired Gus Plum, with a look of keen anxiety showing on his coarse face.

"I've heard some roundabout story about your father losing money," said Roger, before Dave could answer. "If it is true, I am sorry for you, Gus."

"Bah! I don't want your sympathy. Did Hamilton tell you that story?"

"No."

"I suppose you are spreading it right and left, eh? Making me out to be a pauper, like your friend Porter, eh?" continued Gus Plum, working himself up into a magnificent condition of ill-humor.

"I am not spreading it right and left," answered Roger, quietly.