to have
the laying of it on."

"Yah! would yer!" said Bob defiantly. "Dessay you would. I should like
to see yer."

"But you wouldn't like to feel it," said Peter. "My eye, you will open
that pretty mouth of yours! Pig-ringing'll be nothing to it."

"Won't be me," said Bob. "It'll be him, and serve him right."

Dexter's cheeks grew redder as he pictured the disgrace of a flogging
scene.

"Not it," continued Peter. "You'll get all that. Sir James'll give it
you as sure as a gun. Won't he, Dan'l!"

"Ah!" ejaculated the old gardener. "I heerd him say over and over again
that ha wouldn't lose that boat for a hundred pounds. You'll get it, my
gentleman!"

"No, I shan't, 'cause I didn't do it. He'll give it to him, and sarve
him right, leading me on to go with him, and boasting and bouncing
about, and then pretending he wanted to buy the boat, and saying he sent
me with the money."

"So I did," cried Dexter, turning sharply round; "and you stole it, and
then told lies."

"That I didn't," said Bob. "I never see no money. 'Tain't likely.
It's all a tale you made up, and--oh!"

Bob burst into a regular bellow of pain, for, as he had been speaking,
he had edged along the seat a little from his corner of the carriage, to
bring himself nearer Dexter, who occupied the opposite diagonal corner.
As Bob spoke he nodded his head, and thrust his face forward at Dexter
so temptingly, that, quick as lightning, the latter flung out his right,
and gave Bob a back-handed blow in the cheek.

"Oh! _how_!" cried Bob; and then menacingly, "Here, just you do that
again!"

Dexter's blood was up. There was a long course of bullying to avenge,
and he did that again, a good deal harder, with the result that the yell
Bob emitted rose well above the rattle of the carriage.

"Well done, young un," cried Peter delightedly. "That's right. Give it
him again. Here, Dan'l, let 'em have it out, and we'll see fair!"

"No, no, no!" growled the old gardener, stretching out one hand, and
catching Bob by the collar, so as to drag him back into his corner--a
job he had not the slightest difficulty in doing. "None o' that.
They'd be blacking one another's eyes, and there'd be a row."

"Never mind," cried Peter, with all the love of excitement of his class.

"No, no," said Dan'l. "No fighting;" and he gave Dexter a grim look of
satisfaction, which had more kindness in it than any the boy had yet
seen.

"Here, you let me get at