CHAPTER III. ON BOARD THE “BELLE.

Somehow, when we resort to violence, we often do much more than we intend. I did not desire to do anything more than defend myself; but Waddie stood between me and the water, and when I hit him, he went over. I have never claimed to be saint or angel. I was human enough to “get mad” when the young gentleman flattened my nose and made it bleed. I simply defended myself by the only means within my power, though I did not intend to throw Waddie into the lake.

The water was not more than three or four feet deep near the wall; but Waddie might have been drowned in it, if he had not been promptly assisted by the auctioneer and others. But if the water was not deep, it was cold, and hydropathy is an excellent remedy for overheated blood.

“That’s the way Wolf fights,” said Waddie, as he shook the water from his clothes.

“He served you right,” replied the auctioneer, who, I believe, did not belong to Ruoara--certainly not to Centreport.

“Do you call this fair play?” demanded Waddie, with chattering teeth.

“To be sure I do. You turned on him, and hit him without any warning,” retorted the auctioneer. “He hit you back, and paid you in your own coin. You went over into the lake, but that was not his fault. Fifty dollars is bid for this beautiful boat, that cost over six hundred.”

“I told him I would be the death of him if he bid against me,” replied Waddie; but there was not much life in his words.

“O, ho! you did--did you? Well, I’m glad he knocked you into the lake; and if I had known what you told him, you might have staid in the lake for all me,” added the auctioneer indignantly, for the greatest sin in his estimation was a conspiracy to suppress bidding at an auction. “Fifty dollars! Shall I have sixty?”

Waddie lingered on the wall, shivering with the cold; but, to my astonishment, he did not make any additional bid. I could not understand it. The auctioneer again called the attention of the audience to the many virtues of the _Belle_, and then observed, in piteous tones, that only fifty dollars was bid for the beautiful craft.

“I haven’t done with you yet, Wolf Penniman,” said Waddie, creeping up to me.

“Well, I hope you will finish with me as soon as possible,” I replied, stepping back from the wall so as not to afford him any temptation to push me into the lake.

“I’ll keep my word with you.”

“Fifty dollars!” stormed the auctioneer, justly indignant at the sacrifice of the boat.

“When must it be paid for?” demanded Waddie.

“Cash on delivery,” replied the auctioneer sharply.

“Can it be delivered to-morrow?”

“No; the sale must be closed to-day. Fifty dollars!”

“Sixty,” said Waddie, with an ugly glance at me, after one of the bystanders had whispered a word to him, to the effect, I suppose, that he would lend him ten dollars.

“Sixty-five,” I added quietly.

“Sixty-five!” repeated the auctioneer, more hopefully.

Waddie was beginning to warm up again, and had actually ceased to shiver. He spoke to the bystander with whom he was acquainted, and then bid seventy dollars. I immediately advanced to seventy-five.

“Seventy-five!” shouted the auctioneer. “Gentlemen, this is a shameful sacrifice of valuable property.”

I saw Waddie’s friend shake his head, as though he was not willing to risk more than twenty dollars on the speculation; but while the young gentleman was arguing the point with him, the _Belle_ was struck off to me. The scion of the house of Wimpleton swore like a bad boy when this result was reached. He shook his fist at me, and raised a laugh among the bystanders, not all of whom appeared to reverence the idol which had been set up in Centreport. My purchase included the small boat which served as a tender to the _Belle_, the mooring-buoy, and other appurtenances.

The auctioneer’s clerk gave me a bill of sale of the boat, and I paid the cash on the spot. I was the happiest young man on the shore of the lake. Waddie had disappeared as soon as the sale was completed, and I was subjected to no further annoyance from him. Having finished my business in Ruoara, I was ready to sail for home, and astonish the Middleporters with the sight of my purchase.

“That’s a fine boat you have bought,” said one of the half-dozen persons who stood on the wall watching my movements.

I looked up and saw that the speaker was Dick Bayard, a Wimpletonian, and the senior captain in the Centreport Battalion. He was a leading spirit among the students on his side of the lake. He had been the actual, though not the nominal, leader in the war on the Horse Shoe, and had distinguished himself by his energy and enterprise in that memorable conflict. His father lived in Ruoara, which accounted for his appearance there when the institute was in session. I had a great deal of respect for him, after I saw how well he bore himself in the silly war, though he had always been a strong and unreasonable supporter of Waddie, and had aided him in persecuting me before I was driven out of Centreport.

“Yes, she is a first-rate boat,” I replied; for speaking well of my boat was even better than speaking well of my dog.

“Are you going down to Middleport now?”

“Yes; right off.”

“Will you take a passenger?” he asked, rather diffidently.

“Who?”

“Myself.”

“I will, with pleasure.”

“Thank you, Wolf.”

I pushed the tender up to the wall, and he stepped into it.

“Some of the fellows say you are not a bit like other boys, Wolf; and I begin to think they are more than half-right,” said Dick Bayard, as he came on board of the _Belle_.

“Well, I don’t know. I don’t suppose I’m very different from other fellows,” I replied, with becoming modesty.

“You don’t seem to have a grudge against any one. If a fellow abuses you, you treat him as well as ever. You knock him over in self-defense, and then behave toward him just as though nothing had happened.”

“I think I can afford to do so.”

“I didn’t think you would let me sail up the lake with you,” laughed he.

“Why not?”

“Like a good many other fellows, I have toadied to Waddie Wimpleton, and helped him hunt you down.”

“I don’t care anything about that now.”

“I see you don’t. Can I help you?” he asked, as I began to hoist the mainsail.

“You may take the peak-halyard, if you please.”

We hoisted the jib and mainsail, and stood up the lake with a gentle breeze. I took the elaborately carved tiller in my hand, and if ever a young man was proud of his boat, his name was Wolfert Penniman. The _Belle_ fully realized all even of the auctioneer’s enthusiastic description.

“Don’t you belong to the institute now, Dick?” I asked, after we had said all that it was necessary to say in praise of the _Belle_, and after my companion had related to me more of her history than I knew before.

“Not much,” said he, laughing; “my name is still on the books, and I am still captain of Company A, Wimpleton Battalion; but I don’t go to school half the time.”

“Why not?” I asked curiously.

“I don’t want to. Since the steamboat company was formed, Waddie has put on so many airs that some of us can’t stand it. In fact, our president does not treat us much better than he did you.”

“That is unfortunate for you, and still more so for him.”

“They say the Toppletonians are down upon Tommy; but I am inclined to think the feeling is worse on our side than on yours. Waddie is the most unpopular fellow on our side of the lake.”

“I have often wondered how you fellows, whose fathers are rich men, could let Waddie lord it over you as he does. My father is a poor man, but I can’t stand it.”

“They won’t stand it much longer,” replied Dick, shaking his head. “Our fellows have had about enough of it.”

“What are you going to do?” I inquired.

“Well, I don’t exactly know, and, if I did, I suppose it would not be prudent to tell you,” laughed Dick. “They are going to turn him out of office, for one thing.”

“I think that would do him good. That same thing will happen to Tommy Toppleton at the next election.”

“Waddie got into a row the other day with a lot of fellows that don’t belong to the institute. He undertook to drive them off the ground where they were playing, near the town school. They wouldn’t go, and one of them, a plucky little fellow, spoke his mind pretty freely to him. Waddie and one of his cronies caught him the next day and gave him a cowhiding. The town fellows mean to pay him off, and I know they will.”

“They will only get into trouble. Waddie’s father will stand by him,” I added.

“I don’t know what they mean to do.”

“What did Waddie want to drive the town fellows off the ground for?” I inquired.

“They were playing ball, and Waddie wanted the ground to have a game with his friends.”

“Whose ground was it?”

“It was the piece of land called the school pasture, and belongs to the town. You know where it is.”

“I know the place.”

“One party had just as good a right to the ground as the other; but you know how Waddie does things. If he wants anything he takes it, and makes a row if everybody don’t yield to him.”

“That’s his style.”

“But don’t say anything about what I’ve said, please. If anything happens to Waddie, it will be laid to these fellows.”

“They ought to have been smart enough to keep still themselves,” I replied.

“One of them told me about it in confidence. I shouldn’t have said anything to you, if you lived on our side now.”

“I won’t say anything.”

I was not likely to think anything more about it, and still less to meddle with the affair.

“We are tired of this thing on our side of the lake,” continued Dick. “If we had twenty fellows that would serve Waddie as you did to-day, when he pitched into you, we might make a decent fellow of him after a while. For my own part, I don’t mean to take a word of lip from him. If he insults me, I shall give him as good as he sends. Indeed, I have done so once or twice, and he hates me like poison for it.”

“I don’t think you make anything by using hard words.”

“What do you do, Wolf?”

“I don’t think that abusive language does me any harm, and I mean to be good-natured, whatever happens; though, when it comes to hitting me in the face, and giving me a bloody nose, I can’t quite stand that, and I defend myself as vigorously as I know how. I think a fellow can be a gentleman without putting his neck under anybody’s heel.”

I landed Dick Bayard at Centreport, and stood over to the other side of the lake. I moored the _Belle_ in a little bay not far from my father’s house, and went home to report my good fortune.