“What is he going to do with that snowball?” demanded Louise.

“I know!  I know!” giggled Bobby, in sudden delight.  “That man with the silk hander chief over his head is going to get a shower.”

“He isn’t a man.  He’s just a fresh kid,” declared Ted, but he said it somewhat anxiously now.

“Stop him, somebody!” cried Louise.  “He’ll get into trouble.”

“If you ask me,” drawled Bob Henderson, “I think that somebody else is going to get into trouble.  I saw that chap stick his foot out and trip Ted before.”

“He did it unknowingly,” cried Betty, under her breath.  “He’s asleep.”

“If he is he won’t be long,” whispered Bobby, clutching at Betty and holding her into the seat.  “Let Tommy Tucker be.  If that fellow trips him——­”

The next instant Tommy did trip.  Without any doubt the well shod foot of the man lolling in the seat slid into the aisle as the boy with the snowfall approached, and Tommy pitched over it with almost a certainty of falling headlong.  Indeed, he would have gone to the floor of the car had he not let go of the mass of snow in his hands and clutched at the seat arms.

“Whoo!” burst out Teddy Tucker in delight.  “Now that fresh kid’s got his!”

For the soft snowball in Tommy’s hands landed plump upon the handkerchief-covered crown of the person sprawling so ungracefully in the Pullman seat!  The victim uttered a howl audible above the drumming of the car wheels.  And he leaped upright between the seats of his section, beat the fast-melting snow off his head and face, and displayed the latter to the young peoples’ amazement as that of a very stern looking gentleman indeed with a bald head and gray side whiskers.

“Oh, my aunt’s cat and all her kittens!” gasped Bob Henderson.  “Now Tommy has done it!  See who it is, Ted?”

Teddy Tucker was as pale as the snow his brother had brought in from outside and which now showered about the victim of the ill-timed jest.

“Ma—­Major Pater!  From Salsette!  He has an artificial leg, and that’s why it was sticking out in the aisle whenever he nodded off.  Oh, Jimminy-beeswax! what’s going to become of Tommy?”

CHAPTER X

BEAUTIFUL SNOW

The girls had heard the boys who attended Salsette Academy mention that martinet, Major Pater.  Although his infirmity—­or injury—­precluded his having anything to do with the drilling of the pupils of the academy, in the schoolroom he was the most stern of all the instructors at Salsette.

“Oh, poor Tommy!” gasped Betty, wringing her hands.

“Served him right,” declared Louise.  “He should not have played that trick.  A lame man, too!”

“Oh, Louise!” exclaimed her sister Bobby, “Tommy didn’t know it was an artificial limb he was stumbling over.”

“And I’m sure I didn’t know it was his old peg-leg I tripped on twice,” declared Teddy Tucker in high dudgeon.  “What did he want to go to sleep for, spraddled all over the aisle?”