ey had begun voluntarily to wash his
neck--the back of it, anyhow.

This was at the bottom of the fight between Ramsey Milholland and Wesley
Bender, and the diplomatic exchanges immediately preceding hostilities
were charmingly frank and unhyprocitical, although quite as mixed-up
and off-the-issue as if they had been prepared by professional foreign
office men. Ramsey and Fred Mitchell and four other boys waylaid young
Bender on the street after school, intending jocosities rather than
violence, but the victim proved sensitive. "You take your ole hands off
o' me!" he said fiercely, as they began to push him about among them.

"Ole dirty Wes!" they hoarsely bellowed and squawked, in their changing
voices. "Washes his ears!"... "Washes his _neck!_"... "Dora Yocum told
his mama to turn the hose on him!"... "Yay-ho! Ole dirty Wes tryin to be
a duke!"

Wesley broke from them and backed away, swinging his strapped books in
a dangerous circle. "You keep off!" he warned them. "I got as much right
to my pers'nal appearance as anybody!"

This richly fed their humour, and they rioted round him, keeping outside
the swinging books at the end of the strap. "Pers'nal appearance!"...
"Who went and bought it for you, Wes?"... "Nobody bought it for him.
Dora Yocum took and give him one!"

"You leave ladies' names alone!" cried the chivalrous Wesley. "You ought
to know better, on the public street, you--pups!"

Here was a serious affront, at least to Ramsey Milholland's way
of thinking; for Ramsey, also, now proved sensitive. He quoted his
friends--"Shut up!"--and advanced toward Wesley. "You look here! Who you
callin' 'pups'?"

"Everybody!" Wesley hotly returned. "Everybody that hasn't got any
more decency than to go around mentioning ladies' names on the public
streets. Everybody that goes around mentioning ladies' names on the
public streets are pups!"

"They are, are they?" Ramsey as hotly demanded. "Well, you just look
here a minute; my own father mentions my mother's name on the public
streets whenever he wants to, and you just try callin' my father a pup,
and you won't know what happened to you!"

"What'll _you_ do about it?"

"I'll put a new head on you," said Ramsey. "That's what I'll do, because
anybody that calls my father or mother a pup--"

"Oh, shut up! I wasn't talking about your ole father and mother. I said
everybody that mentioned Dora Yocum's name on the public streets was
a pup, and I mean it! Everybody t