In the hallway the Coffee-colored Angel jabbed him with his elbow,
muttering:
"You laughed at me, you miserable Rinky Dink. I'll fix you for that."
He disappeared swiftly. Before Dink could frame a reply he was
surrounded by an admiring chorus. The Tennessee Shad and Macnooder
shook hands with ceremony.
"You'll do," said the Tennessee Shad.
"You certainly will!" said Doc Macnooder.
"You've made a hit with Lucius Cassius," said the Tennessee Shad.
Dink shook his head; he knew better.
"You must always recite--always," said Doc Macnooder, from his great
knowledge of the nature of masters. "Whether you're prepared or
not--recite."
"I will," said Dink.
"And say, Dink," said Macnooder, "keep that outfit we sold you.
There'll be more hayseeds in the fall."
Dink had thought of that; he had thought of something else, too, which
he craftily hid in his own memory.
"Next fall I'll show them a thing or two," he said gleefully. "I'll
make souvenir crockery sets the rage."
The Coffee-colored Angel and the petty annoyances of the Green House
forgot, he went with a hitch and a kick, loping along, while his
delicately-balanced imagination, now soaring above the gloomy descents
of the morning, swam joyfully in the realms of future triumphs.
In this abstracted mood he passed Foundation's gloomy portals and
Laloo standing in his door gazing down the road, and took the leafy
path that led to the Green.
All at once he heard a battle cry and, turning, beheld the
Coffee-colored Angel and the White Mountain Canary spring from their
concealment and bear down upon him with unmistakable intent. Now,
whether in a former existence Dink had been parent to the fox, or
whether the purely human instinct was quicker than the reason, before
he knew what he had done he had bounded forward and burst for home in
full flight, with his heart pumping at his ribs. Easily distancing his
pursuers, he arrived at the Green House before it dawned upon him that
he had been challenged and run away.
He stopped abruptly with clenched fists, breathing deep.
"Now let them come," he said, turning.
But the Coffee-colored Angel and the White Mountain Canary, having
abandoned the hopeless chase, had gone another way.
Angry and ashamed, Dink went to his room, vowing terrific vengeance.
He planted himself before the mirror and, doubling up either arm, felt
the well-hardened muscles.
"There were two of them, and I didn't have time to think," he said.
"I'll fight 'em--any of 'em."
Reassured by the scowling ferocity of his reflected countenance, he
turned away. But, passing near the window, he saw the Coffee-colored
Angel and the White Mountain Canary come militantly up the stone walk.
A moment later their steps sounded on the stairs. He went hastily to
the door and shot the key. An instant later the door was tried, and
then the contemptuous face of the Coffee-colored Angel loomed through
the transom.
"I knew you were yellow the moment I looked at you," he said
scornfully. "Pah!"
Dink did not answer. He was all in a whirl. His action in locking the
door, so contrary to his heroic resolutions, left him in confusion.
"I wonder if I really am afraid," he said, sitting down-all in a heap.
The look in the Coffee-colored Angel's eye had brought him an
unpleasant creeping sensation in the region of the back.
And yet the Coffee-colored Angel, bone for bone and inch for inch, was
just what he was--only he had fled from him, inadvertently,
instinctively, it is true, yet feeling the running menace at his back.
"I'm a coward!" he said, staring at the opposite wall. "I must be a
coward! If I weren't I would have opened that door."
Now, Dink had never fought a real fight. He had had a few
rough-and-tumble skirmishes, but a fight where you stood up and looked
a man in the whites of the eyes, a deliberate, planned-out fight, was
outside his knowledge, in the mists of the unknown. And so his
imagination--which later should be his strength--recoiled before that
unknown as it had recoiled the moment he stepped from the stage to
face his new judges; as it had recoiled in the hushed parlor before
the closed door of the head master's den, and again at the thought of
stepping into the batter's box and risking his head against the deadly
shoots of Nick Carter, of the Cleve. He had never fought, therefore he
was aghast at the fear of being afraid.
"Well, I won't run again," he said desperately. "I'll have it over
with--he can only lick me."
But he did run again, and often, despite all his resolves, impelled
always by the psychological precedent that he had run before.
The Coffee-colored Angel and the White Mountain Canary made a regular
ceremony of it, raising a hue and cry at the sight of him and bursting
into derisive laughter after short chases.
Dink was miserable and now thoroughly frightened. He slunk into the
solitude of his own company, avoiding the disdainful looks of his
House mates. He knew now he was a coward and should never be anything
else. He did not blame Butsey, who scarcely spoke to him. All he
thought of was, by roundabout ways, to put off the dreadful hour when
either the Coffee-colored Angel or the White Mountain Canary should
catch him and beat him to a quivering, senseless pulp.
Then the unexpected happened. One day, cutting across fields to avoid
his persecutors, he was suddenly shut off by the White Mountain
Canary, who rose from ambush, jeering horribly. Cut off from the
Green, Dink returned post-haste up the village, when all at once the
Coffee-colored Angel closed in on him. Only one way of escape was open
to him, down an alley between two houses. With the Coffee-colored
Angel at his heels he dashed ahead, turned the corner of the house
and found himself caught in a blind area.
Whereupon he turned on the Coffee-colored Angel and slathered him,
drove him hither and thither with terrific blows, knocked him head
over heels, caught him by the throat and beat him against a wall,
rolled him on the ground and rubbed him in the dust, tore his clothes,
blacked his eyes and left him beaten and supinely, passively
wallowing.
He walked out on his tiptoes, like a terrier, head erect, his chest
out, fists still folded, tears in his eyes--tears of pride and relief.
He had fought a fight, he had received terrific blows and minded them
not. He had thrashed the Coffee-colored Angel: he could thrash or take
a thrashing from any one. He had his first thrill, the thrill of
conscious rage, comparable only to first love and first sorrow. He had
licked the Coffee-colored Angel--he was not a coward!
At this highly-auspicious moment the unsuspecting White Mountain
Canary perceived the despised object of his chase and, raising a
shout, triumphantly bore down upon him. With a rush he cleared the
intervening space and then, catching sight of the new Dink, stopped as
though he had been jerked in by a rope.
* * * * *
A few moments later the group on the Green House steps were lazily
working out a French translation, which Beekstein, the Secretary of
the Department of Education, was reading to them, when suddenly, in
the fields opposite, two figures appeared, zigzagging wildly.
"Here comes the Dink again," said Stuffy Brown. "They'll get him this
time."
"Who's after him?" said Tough McCarty. "He's a disgrace to the House."
"It's the White Mountain Canary," said Susie Satterly.
"Hello!" said Cheyenne.
"What?"
"I'll be darned--no--yes--dinged if it isn't the Dink chasing the
Canary!"
As they sprang up, amazed, Stover dove at the fleeing tormentor,
caught him, and the two went down in a heap, thrashing to and fro.
"Well, I'll be jig-swiggered!" said Cheyenne.
"I'll eat my pants!"
"The Dink!"
At this moment the awful wreck of the Coffee-colored Angel limped up.
A chorus broke out:
"The Coffee-colored Angel!"
"Shot to pieces!"
"Massacred!"
"Kicked by a horse!"
"What hit you?"
"Dink," said the Coffee-colored Angel, taking a tooth out of his
muddy mouth. "I caught him."
Presently they saw Stover arise and loose the battered White Mountain
Canary, who broke wildly for shelter.
"Well, anyhow," said the Coffee-colored Angel, "Dink's swallowed the
Canary."
"What's he up to now?" said Cheyenne.
They watched him approach the fence, deliberately take off his coat,
remove his collar and necktie, tighten his belt and methodically,
slowly roll up his sleeves.
"Here he comes," said the Coffee-colored Angel, moving swiftly away.
"Why, he's crying!"
Dink came up the path, choking with rage and the knowledge of his own
tears, and in front of them all threw down his coat.
"You thought I was afraid, did you? You thought I was a coward!" he
sobbed. "Well, I'll show you whether I'm afraid of you, any of you,
you big bullies! You big stuff, you, come on!"
And suddenly advancing, he squared off and struck Tough McCarty a wild
blow, crash on the nose.