VII.

"I'm awfully glad we knew enough to cut and run," exclaimed Phipps Benton, hugging himself in his cosey car-corner, "at least that you knew enough," he corrected himself honestly; "that last skate cost those chaps something. Won't Pa Bangs give it to Wilfred though!"

He couldn't help the shrug of delight as this thought seized him. Wilfred, to state it mildly, was not a boy to be loved dearly, and circumstances now seemed likely to make him anything but an object of envy.

"For shame!" cried St. George hotly, "we've just been there, and he's treated us well."

Phipps flushed all over his brown little face, and looked out of the window into the gathering night. St. George jumped out of his seat, and walked rapidly and unsteadily down the aisle to shake off some of his excitement. That he was going home to his mother all right, warm and safe to a capital supper such as only she knew how to get up for a hungry boy, tired and cold after a long winter-day frolic, made it all the worse that other boys who had so little while ago been the larger part of his laughing, noisy troop, should be at this very minute, shivering, half-starved and cross, at their wits' end how to pass the night. He could almost see Bridget setting on the supper things, smell the delicious coffee permeating the house, and hear his mother say, "Come, it is almost time for my boy to be here, you better begin to mix your cake-batter," and his mouth almost watered as he thought of the toothsome, smoking hot cakes that would before long be piled upon his plate.

But suddenly he stopped. No cakes for him that night—perhaps not even coffee. Who would tell those parents of the fifteen or so boys stranded on Sachem Hill why they were not to come bounding into their several homes on the arrival of the six o'clock train in the B. and A. Depot? George Edward and Phipps must do all those errands before they could hope to enjoy any supper that night.

Whew! He drew himself up with a long breath, turned and rushed back to his seat.

"See here," he cried, throwing himself down, "you can take all the places nearest to your house—and I'll do the same."

Phipps turned and regarded him with a stare.

"To tell the fathers and mothers," explained St. George with a nod, "no other way, you see, why the chaps don't get home."

"Good gracious!" cried Phipps explosively, "I never thought of that. We can't! We're as hungry as beavers."

"We must." St. George laughed gayly, now that the struggle was over, and indulged in a smart pinch on his companion's shoulder. "Wake up, old fellow."

"You let me be," cried Phipps crossly, shaking him off, "and you get out with your 'musts.' I don't know any, I can tell you, and as for going around to tell a lot of people what's none of my business, you won't see me doing it. I'm going home myself."

"Who will do it then?" demanded St. George just as sharply.

"Don't know," said Phipps doggedly, "only I know I won't, that's all." He returned the look his companion gave him with another no pleasanter, and every whit as determined.

"And you mean to let those fathers and mothers go all night without knowing where in creation the chaps are?" cried the other boy in the seat, every feature ablaze with indignation. "Say?"

"They should have come along; it's their own fault they got left."

"But the fathers and mothers aren't to blame," insisted St. George vehemently. "Yours would go most crazy if you didn't turn up at the right time."

Phipps, however, was not to allow his feelings to be worked upon in this way. He now found himself very cold, decidedly hungry, and violently cross, and, giving St. George a push, he declared, "I tell you I won't do a single thing, nor take a single step. I can't hardly move, and I shall go straight home."

"Of course," said St. George, brightening up, and relaxing a bit, "so shall I, to tell my folks."

"I shall stay there," said Phipps obstinately. With that he turned again to the window.

"Do!" burst out St. George in high scorn, "and save your stingy, mean, little pinched-up carcass!"

"Boys," said an old gentleman back of them, leaning forward to bring his stern face over into the excitement, "I should think if you must fight, you could find some other place a little more appropriate than a crowded rail-car."

St. George brought his flushed face over against that of the old gentleman, and sprang to his feet, reaching for the skates dangling from the rack overhead, while he shivered all over with anger and mortification. Phipps did not turn his head.

The old gentleman seeing that his shaft had struck home, wounding at least one individual, put himself back in his own seat, well pleased, and St. George summarily retreated to the rear of the car, full of reflections the farthest removed from agreeable ones.

Here he was in a quarrel, and just a moment before he had been giving advice how to spare the feelings of others, and he couldn't control his own, but must anger Phipps with whom he had never had the least falling out. Faugh! He was so disgusted with himself, he would have thanked any one who would take him one side, and give him that castigation he felt he so richly deserved. And there were the eyes of all the passengers in the car directed to him, as if he were a person whose movements were singular, to say the least, and would bear watching. Half of them had heard the old gentleman's sharp, ringing rebuke even if they had not been listeners to the quarrel itself, and the other half were now, he felt, staring at him and whispering over him as he stood pretending to look out of the door, while their eyes seemed burning holes into his jacket.

It was interminable, that hour before they could reach the B. and A. Depot, and the only relief he experienced was in pulling out his watch every five moments to see what time it was.

At last, in the train swept to the depot. St. George looked back quickly, intending to rush back, bestow a thwack on Phipps' back, say he was sorry, and make up. But the throng was great and a woman with a baby asked him to help her off the car, so by the time he got free most of the passengers had filed out and were hurrying along the platform. St. George caught a flying glimpse of the boy he sought, some little distance ahead, and he bounded after him.

"Phipps," he cried, darting in and out between the people, and dodging an expressman with a barrow, "wait, old chap."

St. George was positive that his call was heard, but the boy in front now gathered up his skates to a tighter clasp and broke into a run.

St. George chased him so long as he saw the least chance of gaining on him, then suddenly pulled up.

"All right," he gasped, "if you want it that way, you may have it. I don't care."