Page:The Fight at Dame Europa's School.djvu/28

 all. They are both in the wrong, and they ought not to fight. Let me go in at them."

"No, no," said Bobby, a clever, fair-headed boy, who kept John's accounts, and took care of his money. "You really can't afford it; and, besides, you've got no clothes to go in. There is not a fellow in the school who wouldn't laugh at you, if you stood up in his garden. Sit still and grind away, old chap, and make some more money, and be thankful that you live on an island, and can take things easily."

"Well," said John sulkily, "I don't half like it, though certainly my clothes are not very respectable, and there is no time now to mend them. But look here. Bob; I mean to go across and help to sponge the poor beggars, if they get mauled."

"You may do that, and welcome," replied Bobby. "You will make no enemies that way, and it may cost you, perhaps, eighteen pence in ointment and plaster. But, bless you, Johnnie, if you were