other boys, who had
all scrambled to their feet by this time and, instinctively scenting
mischief, were standing in a sort of ring. "He says she's good as me!"

Two of the smallest boys tittered, from pure excitement. Susan's nose
went up.

"I'm better. I'm not a dago!"

Joe leaped toward Susan and thrust his dense, bull-like head forward,
till his eyes were glaring into hers.

"Mebbe I live lika you--eh? Mebbe I live," cried Joe, "with a dirty
_whore_!"

There was a gasp from the encircling boys as Susan fell back from this
word, which she did not wholly comprehend, but whose vileness she felt,
somehow, in her very flesh. Joe, baring gorilla teeth, burst into coarse
jubilation.

It was just at this point that Jimmy Kane, younger than Joe by a year or
more, and far slighter, jumped on the little ruffian--alas, from
behind!--and dealt him as powerful a blow on the head as he could
compass; a blow whose effectiveness, I reluctantly admit, was enhanced
by the half brick with which Jimmy had first of all prudently provided
himself. Joe Gonfarone went to earth, inert, but bleeding profusely.

There was a scuttling of frightened feet in every direction. Susan
herself did not stop running until she reached the very top of the Birch
Street incline. Then she looked back, her eyes lambent, her heart
throbbing, not alone from the rapid ascent. Yes, there was Jimmy--_her_
Jimmy!--kneeling in the dust by the still prostrate Joe. Susan could not
hear him, but she knew somehow from his attitude that he was scared to
death, and that he was asking Joe if he was hurt much. She agonized with
her champion, feeling none the less proud of him, and she waited for him
at the top of the rise, hoping to thank him, longing to kiss his hands.

But Jimmy, when he did pass her, went by without a glance, at top speed.
He was bound for a doctor. So Susan never really managed to thank Jimmy
at all. She merely idolized him in secret, a process which proved,
however, fairly heart-warming and, in the main, satisfactory.

It took three stitches to mend Joe's head--a fact famous in the junior
annals of Birch Street for some years--and soon after he appeared,
somewhat broken in spirit, in the street again, his parents moved him,
Margharita and the sloe-eyed twins to Bridgeport--very much, be it
admitted, to the relief of Jimmy Kane, who had lived for three weeks
nursing a lonely fear of dark reprisals.

III

There was one thing about Bob Bla