within the specified limits of the
Englishes' yard. When an officer caught a malefactor, he attempted to
bring his prize before the police sergeant. The robber was privileged to
resist. Assistance from the other policemen and rescues by the other
robbers were permitted. That was all there was to it. The beautiful
result was a series of free fights.

Bobby, as a new-comer, was made a robber. So were Grace Jones, Morton
and Walter. The nature of the game demanded that the oldest should be
policeman, otherwise arrests might be disgracefully unavailing.

At a signal from Carrie the robbers scurried away. At another the
sleuths set out on the trail. Each policeman elected a robber as his
especial prey. Bobby ran rapidly around the front of the house, dodged
past the front steps and paused. Behind him he heard stealthy footsteps
approaching the corner of the house. Instantly he ducked forward around
the other corner and ran plump into the arms of Johnny English.

That youngster immediately grappled him.

Johnny was no bigger than Bobby, but he was practised at scuffles and
his body was harder and firmer knit. Bobby tugged manfully, but almost
before he knew it he was upset and hit the ground with a disconcerting
whack. Of course, he continued to struggle, and the two, fiercely
locked, whirled over and over through the leaves, but in a humiliatingly
brief period Johnny had twisted him on his back and was sitting on his
chest.

"There, I told you I could lick you!" he cried triumphantly.

"Let me up! Let me up, I tell you!" roared Bobby, kicking his legs and
threshing his arms in a vain effort to budge the weight across his body.

Johnny looked at him curiously.

"Why! You ain't _mad_, are you!" He shrieked with the joy of the
discovery. "Oh, kids! Come here and see him! He's getting mad!"

Bobby's eyes filled with tears of rage. And then he saw quite plainly
the top of a sand-hill and the village lying below and the blue of the
River far distant. And he heard Mr. Kincaid's voice.

"But, sonny, you can always be a sportsman, whatever you do," the voice
said, "and a sportsman does things because he likes them, Bobby, for no
other reason--not for money, nor to become famous, nor even to win----"

He choked back his rage and forced a grin to his lips--very much the
same sort that he had once accomplished when he "jumped up and laughed"
at his mother's spanking, simply because he had been told to do that
whenever he was