“You are a savage,” said Phil, in a low voice, but with a fiery eye, confronting Ned at close quarters.

“And what are you?” replied young Faringfield promptly.  “You’re a beggar, that’s what you are!  A beggar that my father took in.”

For a moment or two Phil regarded his insulter in amazed silence; then answered: 

“If only you weren’t her brother!”

Here Madge spoke up, from the ground on which she sat: 

“Oh, don’t let that stop you, Phil!”

“I sha’n’t,” said Phil, with sudden decision, and the next instant the astounded Ned was recoiling from a solid blow between the eyes.

Of course he immediately returned the compliment in kind, and as Ned was a strong fellow, Phil had all he could do to hold his own in the ensuing scuffle.  How long this might have lasted, I don’t know, had not Fanny run between, with complete disregard of her own safety, calling out: 

“Oh, Phil, you mustn’t hurt Ned!”

Her interposition being aided on the other side by little Tom, who seized Ned’s coat-tails and strove to pull him away from injuring Philip, the two combatants, their boyish belligerence perhaps having had enough for the time, separated, both panting.

“I’ll have it out with you yet!” said Master Ned, short-windedly, adjusting his coat, and glaring savagely.

“All right!” said Phil, equally out of breath.  Ned then left the field, with a look of contempt for the company.

After that, things went on in the old pleasant manner, except that Ned, without any overt act to precipitate a fight, habitually treated Phil with a most annoying air of scorn and derision.  This, though endured silently, was certainly most exasperating.

But it had not to be endured much of the time, for Ned had grown more and more to disdain our society, and to cultivate companions superior to us in years and knowledge of the world.  They were, indeed, a smart, trick-playing, swearing set, who aped their elders in drinking, dicing, card-gambling, and even in wenching.  Their zest in this imitation was the greater for being necessarily exercised in secret corners, and for their freshness to the vices they affected.

I do not say I was too good for this company and their practices; or that Philip was either.  Indeed we had more than a mere glimpse of both, for boys, no matter how studious or how aspiring in the long run, will see what life they can; will seek the taste of forbidden fruit, and will go looking for temptations to yield to.  Indeed, the higher a boy’s intelligence, the more eager may be his curiosity for, his first enjoyment of, the sins as well as the other pleasures.  What banished us—­Philip and me—­from Ned’s particular set was, first, Ned’s enmity toward us; second, our attachment to a clan of boys equally bent on playing the rake in secret, though of better information and manners than Ned’s comrades could boast of; third, Phil’s fondness for books, and mine for him; and finally, our love for Madge.