k! Lemme down, I say!"

He did not wait for his cousin to obey his command. Before she could
stop the car he took a flying leap from the running-board of the
automobile. His books flew one way, his cap another; and with a wild
shout of rage, Marty fell upon Sim Howell!

CHAPTER XVII

THE OPENING OF THE CAMPAIGN

Janice ran the car on for half a block before she stopped. She looked
back. She had never approved of fisticuffs--and Marty was prone to
such disgraceful activities. Nevertheless, when she saw Sim Howell's
blood-besmeared countenance, his wide-open mouth, his clumsy fists
pawing the air almost blindly, something primal--instinctive--made her
heart leap in her bosom.

She delighted in Marty's clean blows, in his quick "duck" and
"side-step;" and when her cousin's freckled fist impinged upon the
fatuous countenance of Sim Howell, Janice Day uttered an unholy gasp of
delight.

She saw Nelson striding to separate the combatants. She hoped he would
not be harsh with Marty.

Then, seeing the neighbors gathering, she pressed the starter button
and the Kremlin glided on again. The tall young schoolmaster was
between the two boys, holding each off at arm's length, when Janice
wheeled around the far corner and gave a last glance at the field of
combat.

"I am getting to be a wicked, wicked girl!" she accused herself, when
she was well out of town and wheeling cheerfully over the Lower Road
toward Middletown. "I have just longed to see that Simeon Howell
properly punished ever since I caught him that day mocking Jim Narnay.
And _that_ arises from the influence of Lem Parraday's bar. Oh, dear
me! _I_ am affected by the general epidemic, I believe.

"If the Inn did not sell liquor, in all human probability, Narnay would
not have been drunk that day; at least, not where I could see him. And
so Sim and those other young rascals would not have chased and mocked
him. I would not have felt so angry with Sim--Dear me! everything
dovetails together, Nelson's trouble and all. I wonder if, after all,
the selling of liquor at the Inn isn't at the bottom of Nelson's
trouble.

"It sounds foolish--or at least, far-fetched. But it may be so.
Perhaps the person who stole those coins was inspired to do the wicked
deed because he was under the influence of liquor. And, of course, the
Lake View Inn was the nearest place where liquor was to be bought.

"Dear me! Am I foolish? Who knows?" Janice concluded,