“Jockus the Cockus—hell!” said Carl Hooton with a sneer, and for a moment more looked at the boy with brutal and derisory contempt. “Son, you ain’t nothin’,” he went on with heavy emphasis, now turning to address his fellows—“Why that little monk-faced squirrel’s—they ain’t even dropped yet.”
Loud appreciative laughter followed on this sally; the boy stood there flushed, resentful, staring at them, saying nothing. Sid Purtle moved closer to him, his pale eyes narrowed ominously to slits.
“Is that right, Monkus?” he asked, with a hateful and confiding quietness. A burble of unwholesome laughter played briefly in his throat, but he summoned sober features, and said quietly, with menacing demand: “Is that right, or not? Have they fallen yet?”
“Sid, Sid,” whispered Harry Nast, plucking at his companion’s sleeve; a snicker of furtive mirth crossed his rat-sharp features. “Let’s find out how well he’s hung.”
They laughed, and Sidney Purtle said:
“Are you hung well, Monkus?” Turning to his comrades, he said gravely, “Shall we find out how much he’s got, boys?”
And suddenly alive with eagerness and mirthful cruelty, they all pressed closer around the boy, with secret, unclean laughter, saying:
“Yes, yes—come on, let’s do it! Let’s find out how much he’s got!”
“Young Monkus,” said Sid Purtle gravely, putting a restraining hand upon his victim’s arm, “much as it pains us all, we’re goin’ to examine you.”
“Let go of me!” The boy wrenched free, turned, whirled, backed up against the tree; the pack pressed closer, leering faces thrusting forward, pale, hateful eyes smeared with the slime of all their foul and secret jubilation. His breath was coming hoarsely, and he said: “I told you to let go of me!”
“Young Monkus,” said Sid Purtle gravely, in a tone of quiet reproof, wherein the dogs of an obscene and jeering mirth were faintly howling—“Young Monkus, we’re surprised at you! We had expected you to behave like a little gentleman—to take your medicine like a little man…. Boys!”
He turned, addressing copemates in a tone of solemn admonition, grave surprise: “It seems the little Monkus is trying to get hard with us. Do you think we should take steps?”
“Yes, yes,” the others eagerly replied, and pressed still closer round the tree.
And for a moment there was an evil, jubilantly attentive silence as they looked at him, naught but the dry, hard pounding of his heart, his quick, hard breathing, as they looked at him. Then Victor Munson moved forward slowly, his thick, short hand extended, the heavy volutes of his proud, swart nostrils swelling with scorn. And his voice, low-toned and sneering, cajoling with a hateful mockery, came closer to him coaxingly, and said:
“Come, Monkus! Come little Monkus! Lie down and take your medicine, little Monk!…Here Jocko! Come Jocko! Here Jocko! Come Jocko!—Come and get your peanuts—Jock, Jock, Jock!”
Then while they joined in hateful laughter, Victor Munson moved forward again, the swart, stub fingers, warted on the back, closed down upon the boy’s left arm; and suddenly he drew in his breath in blind, blank horror and in bitter agony, he knew that he must die and never draw his shameful breath in quietude and peace, or have a moment’s hope of heartful ease again; something blurred and darkened in blind eyes—he wrenched free from the swart, stub fingers, and he struck.
The blind blow landed in the thick, swart neck and sent it gurgling backwards. Sharp hatred crossed his vision now, and so enlightened it; he licked his lips and tasted bitterness, and, sobbing in his throat, he started towards the hated face. He arms were pinioned from behind. Sid Purtle had him, the hateful voice was saying with a menacing and now really baleful quietude:
“Now, wait a minute! Wait a minute, boys!…We were just playin’ with him, weren’t we, and he started to get hard with us!…Ain’t that right?”
“That’s right, Sid. That’s the way it was, all right!”
“We thought he was a man, but he turns out to be just a little sorehead, don’t he? We were just kiddin’ him along, and he has to go and get sore about it. You couldn’t take it like a man, could you?” said Sidney Purtle, quietly and ominously into the ear of his prisoner; at the same time he shook the boy a little—“You’re just a little cry-baby, ain’t you? You’re just a coward, who has to hit a fellow when he ain’t lookin’?”
“You turn loose of me,” the captive panted, “I’ll show you who’s the cry-baby! I’ll show you if I have to hit him when he isn’t looking!”
“Is that so, son?” said Victor Munson, breathing hard.
“Yes, that’s so, son!” the other answered bitterly.
“Who says it’s so, son?”
“I say it’s so, son!”
“Well, you don’t need to go gettin’ on your head about it!”
“I’m not the one who’s gettin’ on his head about it; you are!”
“Is that so?”