ohn Augustus Nugent about the face in a most painful and workmanlike
fashion.

She hid her face for a moment, and when she looked again Jack was on the
ground, and Master Hardy just rising from his prostrate body. Then Jack
rose slowly and, crossing over to her, borrowed her handkerchief and
applied it with great tenderness to his nose.

"Does it hurt, Jack?" she inquired, anxiously. "No," growled her
brother.

He threw down the handkerchief and turned to his opponent again; Miss
Nugent, who was careful about her property, stooped to recover it, and
immediately found herself involved in a twisting tangle of legs, from
which she escaped by a miracle to see Master Hardy cuddling her brother
round the neck with one hand and punching him as hard and as fast as he
could with the other. The unfairness of it maddened her, and the next
moment Master Hardy's head was drawn forcibly backwards by the hair. The
pain was so excruciating that he released his victim at once, and Miss
Nugent, emitting a series of terrified yelps, dashed off in the direction
of home, her hair bobbing up and down on her shoulders, and her small
black legs in an ecstasy of motion.

Master Hardy, with no very well-defined ideas of what he was going to do
if he caught her, started in pursuit. His scalp was still smarting and
his eyes watering with the pain as he pounded behind her. Panting wildly
she heard him coming closer and closer, and she was just about to give up
when, to her joy, she saw her father coming towards them.

Master Hardy, intent on his quarry, saw him just in time, and, swerving
into the road, passed in safety as Miss Nugent flung herself with some
violence at her father's waistcoat and, clinging to him convulsively,
fought for breath. It was some time before she could furnish the
astonished captain with full details, and she was pleased to find that
his indignation led him to ignore the hair-grabbing episode, on which,
to do her justice, she touched but lightly.

That evening, for the first time in his life, Captain Nugent, after some
deliberation, called upon his late mate. The old servant who, since Mrs.
Hardy's death the year before, had looked after the house, was out, and
Hardy, unaware of the honour intended him, was scandalized by the manner
in which his son received the visitor. The door opened, there was an
involuntary grunt from Master Hardy, and the next moment he sped along
the narrow passage and darted upstair