Andy Gordon. Horatio Alger Jr.

me those marbles, Herbert Ross,” cried Johnny Grant.

      “What’ll you give to get them back?” asked Herbert.

      “It’s mean to break up our game,” said Harry.

      “Here, then, come and get them,” said Herbert.

      Harry approached, and extended his hand to receive the marbles, but Herbert, with a taunting laugh, drew back his own hands, and put them into his pocket.

      Johnny had a spirit of his own, though he was a small boy, and he doubled up his small fists, and said, angrily:

      “You have no business to keep our marbles.”

      “What are you going to do about it?” demanded Herbert, provokingly.

      “I know what I’d do if I was as big as you,” said Johnny, hotly.

      “Well, what would you do, you little bantam?”

      “I’d give you a licking and make you cry.”

      “Hear the small boy talk!” said Herbert, bursting into a laugh.

      “It’s because we are small boys that you interfere with us,” said Harry. “You don’t dare to take one of your size.”

      “Look here, you little rascal, you are getting impudent,” said Herbert, who was sensitive to an imputation that he knew to be well founded. “If you ain’t careful, I’ll do something worse than take your marbles.”

      “What will you do?” asked Johnny, spiritedly.

      “What will I do? Come here and I’ll show you.”

      Johnny, in no way frightened, approached, and Herbert, seizing him by the collar, tripped him up, depositing him upon the ground.

      “That’s the way I punish impudence,” said Herbert.

      There had been a witness to his cowardly act.

      “What are you doing there, Herbert Ross?” demanded Andy, who had just come up.

      “None of your business!” retorted Herbert; but he looked disturbed.

      “Harry, what has he been doing to you?” asked Andy.

      Harry and Johnny both told their story.

      Andy turned to Herbert, with eyes full of contempt.

      “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Herbert Ross, to tease little boys. Give them back their marbles.”

      “I will give them back when I get ready,” said Herbert, doggedly.

      “Give them up now, or you will be sorry for it.”

      “Mind your business!” retorted Herbert, and turned to walk away.

      Before he well knew what was going to happen, the young bully found himself lying on his back, in the very spot where he had deposited Johnny a minute before, with Andy bending over him.

      “Let me up, you brute!” he screamed.

      “So I will, when you have given up the marbles.”

      Herbert struggled, but in the end was obliged to surrender the marbles.

      As he rose from the ground he shook his fist at Andy, and shouted, with passion:

      “You’ll repent this, Andrew Gordon! You’ll be a beggar inside of a week, and in State’s prison before the year’s out!”

      “Thank you for your good wishes!” said Andy, coolly. “I’ll take the risk of both.”

      As Herbert slunk home discomfited, he felt that he hated Andy Gordon more than any one in the world, and vowed to be revenged.

      CHAPTER XI.

      ANDY IS ENGAGED FOR POLICE DUTY

      “I wonder how it is,” said Andy to himself, as he walked home, “that I am always getting into a quarrel with Herbert Ross? I don’t think it’s my fault. I couldn’t stand by and see those two little boys imposed upon without interfering. I suppose Herbert is angrier with me than ever, and that he will report this to his father, and get him to proceed against us at once. No matter; we shall be prepared to see him.”

      Andy was more than ever thankful that the all-important receipt was in his mother’s possession. Whatever the lawyer might say, he believed that he was intending to punish them in the interest of his son.

      In one respect, however, Andy made a mistake. Herbert did not report this last difficulty at home.

      He was aware that he had not figured to advantage in his treatment of the two little boys, and any investigation of the matter would reveal this fact.

      It would not be long now before he would have the satisfaction of seeing Andy and his mother in serious trouble, and, though impatient, he decided to wait for that. Then the triumph would be his.

      When Andy reached home, he found that his mother had callers.

      In a lonely situation, about a quarter of a mile beyond the farmhouse of Mr. Joshua Starr, lived two maiden ladies – Susan and Sally Peabody – both over fifty years of age.

      Their father had died thirty years before, leaving them a cottage, with an acre of land, and some twelve thousand dollars in stocks and bonds.

      Living economically, this sum had materially increased, and they were considered in the village rich ladies, as, indeed, they were, since their income amounted to more than twice their expenditures, and they were laying up probably five hundred dollars annually.

      They were very good and kind, simple-hearted old ladies, and very much respected in the village.

      The elder of these ladies, Miss Sally Peabody, Andy found in his mother’s plain sitting-room.

      As he entered, he heard Miss Peabody say:

      “I should like to borrow your Andy to-night, Mrs. Gordon, if you have no objection.”

      Mrs. Gordon supposed that her visitor had some work which she wished Andy to do, and as the latter was always glad of a job, she answered:

      “I am sure, Miss Sally, that Andy will be glad to do anything that you require.”

      “I don’t want him to do anything,” answered Miss Peabody. “I want him to sleep at our house to-night.”

      Mrs. Gordon looked a little puzzled, but Miss Sally went on to explain.

      “You see, Mrs. Gordon, we had a sum of five hundred dollars paid in unexpectedly this morning, and we can’t get it to the bank till Monday. Now, it makes my sister nervous to think of having such a sum of money in the house. I was reading in the papers of a burglar entering a house at night in Thebes – the next village – and it might happen to us. I don’t know what we should do, as we have no man in the house.”