"Humph! He had better not!" muttered Plum, with a scowl. "If he does" The bully did not finish.
"I hope there is no more trouble in the air," was Dave's comment.
"There will be trouble, if Hamilton opens his trap. I won't allow anybody in this school to talk about me, and all of you had better understand it," and the bully glared at the others defiantly.
"I am sure I don't know what you are talking about," said Dave. "I haven't said anything about you."
"And you haven't heard anything?" inquired Gus Plum, with a look of keen anxiety showing on his coarse face.
"I've heard some roundabout story about your father losing money," said Roger, before Dave could answer. "If it is true, I am sorry for you, Gus."
"Bah! I don't want your sympathy. Did Hamilton tell you that story?"
"No."
"I suppose you are spreading it right and left, eh? Making me out to be a pauper, like your friend Porter, eh?" continued Gus Plum, working himself up into a magnificent condition of ill-humor.
"I am not spreading it right and left," answered Roger, quietly.
