Page:De Amicis - Heart, translation Hapgood, 1922.djvu/197

Rh Franti had grown savage; he held out his leg; Stardi tripped and fell, with Franti on top of him.

“Surrender!”—“No!”—“Surrender!”—“No!”

In a flash Stardi was on his feet. He clasped Franti by the body, and, with one furious effort, hurled him to the pavement, and fell upon him with one knee on his breast.

“Ah, the villain! he has a knife!” shouted a man, rushing up to disarm Franti.

But Stardi, beside himself with rage, had already grasped Franti's arm with both hands, and bitten the fist so fiercely that the knife fell from it, and the hand began to bleed. More people had run up in the meantime, separated them and set them on their feet. Franti took to his heels in a sorry plight, while Stardi stood still, with his face all scratched, and with a black eye,—but triumphant,—beside his weeping sister, while some of the girls collected the books and copy-books which were strewn over the street.

“Bravo, little fellow!” said the bystanders; “he defended his sister!”

But Stardi, who was thinking more of his satchel than of his victory, instantly set to examining the books and copy-books, one by one, to see whether anything was missing or injured. He rubbed them off with his sleeve, looked over his pen, put everything back in its place, and then, quiet and serious as usual, he said to his sister, “Let us go home quickly, for I have a hard lesson before me.”