fight me, McKenzie—dirrty toff!”

Luggy was big and strong but lacked “sand.” Donald was endowed with plenty of “grit,” and in the fight that followed behind the bill-boards after school, he came off the victor. A lucky punch on Luggy’s proboscis drew blood, and when the big fellow sighted his own gore he ran away home. Intoxicated with the exhilaration of victory, Donald insisted on Joak accompanying him to Maxwell Park as a reward for seconding him, and Joak, feeling just pride in his protégé, was glad to go and be in a position to give Captain McKenzie an eye-witness’s account of the fracas.

It was almost six o’clock when Donald, accompanied by Joak, burst into the McKenzie drawing-room. Both Captain and Mrs. McKenzie were at home and the Presbyterian minister and his wife—particular folk—were with them awaiting dinner. At the sight of her son—covered with mud, with swollen lips and a rapidly blackening eye, and accompanied by a shock-headed youngster in blue woollen jersey and hob-nailed boots—Mrs. McKenzie nearly fainted.

“Ah’ve had a fight, mamma!” ejaculated Donald, relapsing into the language of the street. “Ah licked a big fella ca’d Luggy Wulson. He was a big lump with nae guts and I bliddied his beak and gave him a keeker! Didn’t I, Joak?”

“Ye did!” grunted Joak laconically, taking in the luxurious surroundings of his “pal’s hoose.”

Mrs. McKenzie rang for the maid and gasped, “Mary! Take these boys out in the kitchen and clean them!”

The minister and his wife sat very prim and quiet. Mrs. McKenzie felt that her darling had fallen from his pedestal, while Captain McKenzie strode to the bay window and looked out with smiling eyes—secretly delighted—and proud to know that he had a son that was “all boy.”

CHAPTER FOUR