line all to yourself? You
know, I needn't have bought it, if I hadn't liked."

"Yes, very, very good--I _do_ love you, Tom." Tom had put the line back
in his pocket, and was looking at the hooks one by one, before he spoke
again.

"And the fellows fought me, because I wouldn't give in about the
toffee."

"Oh, dear! I wish they wouldn't fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it
hurt you?"

"Hurt me? no," said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a large
pocketknife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he looked at
meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he added,--

"I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know; that's what he got by wanting to
leather _me_; I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered me."

"Oh, how brave you are, Tom! I think you're like Samson. If there came a
lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him, wouldn't you, Tom?"

"How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no lions,
only in the shows."

"No, but if we were in the lion countries--I mean Africa, where it's
very hot; the lions eat people there. I can show it you in the book
where I read it."

"Well, I should get a gun and shoot him."

"But if you hadn't got a gun,--we might have gone out, you know, not
thinking, just as we go fishing; and then a great lion might run toward
us roaring, and we couldn't get away from him. What should you do, Tom?"

Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying, "But the
lion _isn't_ coming. What's the use of talking?"

"But I like to fancy how it would be," said Maggie, following him, "Just
think what you would do, Tom."

"Oh, don't bother, Maggie! you're such a silly. I shall go and see my
rabbits."

Maggie's heart began to flutter with fear. She dared not tell the sad
truth at once, but she walked after Tom in trembling silence as he went
out, thinking how she could tell him the news so as to soften at once
his sorrow and his anger; for Maggie dreaded Tom's anger of all things;
it was quite different anger from her own.

"Tom," she said, timidly, when they were out of doors, "how much money
did you give for your rabbits?"

"Two half-crowns and a sixpence," said Tom, promptly.

"I think I've got a great deal more than that in my steel purse
upstairs. I'll ask mother to give it you."

"What for?" said Tom. "I don't want _your_ money, you silly thing. I've
got a great deal more money than you, because I'm a boy. I always have
half-sover