Chapter IX: The Bullfrog and the Pollywog

Billie hesitated, too embarrassed to know what to reply.

"But----" she began, when Clarence interrupted.

"Do you know you are speaking to a lady," he exclaimed angrily, "and you a servant! How dare you call her by her first name, you insolent young upstart. Can't you see that you have made her very angry?"

Billie was so surprised at this unexpected attack that she lost her voice and choked indignantly.

"He is not a servant," she tried to say, but her words were drowned in the abuse which Clarence poured out on Edward.

"Go back to your boat and remember your place hereafter. Don't interrupt when I'm speaking to you, sir--in England servants are trained not to answer back."

Even in the half darkness Billie could see the flush on Edward's face growing deeper every instant. He seemed to breathe in sharp little gasps and his body trembled as if he had an ague.

"Run," she said to Clarence, who after one swift glance at Edward had actually turned on his heel and started up the path. But the warning came too late. In an instant Edward had seized him by the collar and was shaking him as a terrier shakes a rat. Then, without a moment's hesitation, he tossed him into the lake.

"You low, contemptible coward," he said. "Stay there until you apologize."

Clarence floundered about in the water snorting and coughing, and started to wade ashore.

"I'm in earnest," said Edward. "Apologize, or you'll get pitched in again if you try to come out."

All this time Billie had been standing silently on the bank. She could hardly blame Edward for punishing the cowardly boy who had insulted him, but she wished with all her heart that she had not been the cause of the quarrel.

"It's just what I get for mixing into other people's affairs," she thought. "It all came about because I put it into the two Edwards' heads to change places. I do wish I hadn't said so much that night."

The other Edward strolled out of the boat-house just then with his hands in his pockets. He was dressed in the white duck trousers and blue serge coat his counterpart had just removed.

"You look as if you had been having a quarrel," he said. "What's happened?"

"Edward, please give that fellow a good flogging," called Clarence from the lake where he stood waist-deep in water. "You can do it, I know. I found that out the other day."

But Edward l'Estrange was in no humor to be bothered.

"You touch me and you go where your cousin did," he said, feeling equal at that moment to exterminating the line of Paxton-Steeles, root, branch and stock.

"Is that old Clarence out there in the water," said Edward Paxton chuckling. "By Jove, but that's funny. You look like 'the bullfrog on the bank and the pollywog in the pool.'"

Billie laughed outright at this because it was funny--Edward crouched on the bank with a black look on his face, like an angry bullfrog, and pollywog Clarence wading about in the water afraid to come out!

At that moment there was a sound of shouting and laughing and a crowd of boys and girls came running from the piazza into the garden. They were chasing Timothy Peppercorn, who was racing down the path in front of the others. It was only a child's game they were playing, but there are always some big children ranging anywhere from fifteen to fifty who love to play games, and the biggest child at Mr. Duffy's party that night was Mr. Duffy himself. He resembled a jolly fat old satyr with a crowd of pretty wood nymphs around him as he ran puffing and blowing through the palm-bordered walks.

It was Nancy, fleetest nymph of them all, who was the first to catch Timothy by the tail of his coat and hold him fast until the others came up, and it was on the bank of the lake she had caught him, not two feet from where Edward l'Estrange was sitting embracing his knees, in moody silence.

Just as the others came up, a row-boat shot from round the boat-house and pulled into shore.

"Is this Marse Duffy's res-dence?" some one called from the boat.

Edward started. He recognized the voice of Uncle Peter.

"Is that you, Uncle Peter?" he called. "What is it?"

"You's needed at home, Marse Edward."

"All right. Pull over to the boat landing. I'll meet you there. Will you take back the Firefly for me to-night?" he asked Edward Paxton.

"I'll be glad to," replied the other.

"You may expect me to-morrow morning," added Edward l'Estrange in a low voice. "I'll probably need that hundred dollars more than ever now. Before I go will you promise to take my place in every way until I come back?"

"I promise," said the English boy.

He had not noticed that Clarence, seeing a chance to escape, had now advanced within hearing distance.

"And tell your blackguard cousin," continued Edward l'Estrange, "that the apology is only postponed."

"Edward," said Billie, running after him as he hastened to the boat-house, "if you want to use the Comet to-night to get home in, you're welcome to it."

"Thank you, Billie," replied the boy, giving her hand a warm grasp. "You don't mind my not calling you 'Miss,' do you?"

"Of course not," said Billie. "We're just a boy and girl, anyway. Besides, I called you 'Edward' first."

"Good-bye, again," he said, and was gone down the steps before she could say a word.

Billie took another path to the house and avoided the crowd.

In the meantime, Edward Paxton, seeing Elinor standing apart from the group of young people, had whispered to her.

"It's awfully jolly to see you again. I'm not strong on dancing but I'd like one with you, if you don't mind my bungling."

Elinor looked at him in amazement.

"You seem to have been rather strong on dancing the first part of the evening," she said coldly.

"Oh--er, perhaps I was," answered the boy, suddenly remembering that he could not speak for his actions during the first part of the dance.

"But you will dance with me now," he went on, "or better still, suppose we sit on the piazza. I have been thinking up the music for that song," he went on eagerly. "You remember the words you gave me the other night:

"'On thy fair bosom, silver lake,
The wild swan spreads his snowy sail
And round his breast the ripples break,
As down he bears before the gale.'

"You said you would like to sing it on Lake Worth, and I've got the music all ready to put down. If it's ever published, I'll dedicate it to you. It goes like this," he added, humming the air to the song as they moved slowly off toward the house.

"What's that in the water?" called Nancy, after Uncle Peter had interrupted the game and the merry-makers had paused on the bank of the lake to rest and cool off. Mr. Duffy, mopping his face with his pocket handkerchief, had seated himself on the bench occupied by Billie a few moments before.

"It's a man," announced several voices. "It's a man standing in the water."

"What are you doing, my friend? Cooling your ankles?" asked Mr. Duffy, politely.

Seeing that he was discovered, the man waded in.

"Why, it's Clarence," cried Georgiana Paxton.

"Are you quite mad? What will Grandmamma say?" she added in an awed tone of voice.

"Mr. Duffy," said Clarence in a voice quivering with rage, "I have been insulted by a boatman on your place. I thought I wouldn't speak of it at first because I didn't wish to make a scene, but since you have seen me, I must explain."

"Dear me, dear me, dear me," exclaimed Mr. Duffy with great concern. "A boatman on my place? Who could it be? I'm sorry, sir, I'm sure. And what did he do, pray?"

"He was impertinent to a young lady and I reprimanded him, and later when I was standing here talking with her he came up from behind and pushed me off the bank. He rowed off with a man in a boat before I could come out and give him a good flogging."

"Why, he must mean our Edward," said Nancy. "He runs the motor-boat and the Comet, too."

"Edward, of course. He's a fine boy," said Mr. Duffy. "He often does work for Mrs. Duffy in the garden. It's hard to believe he would play such a mean trick on any one. But you'd better come into the house, Mr. Paxton, and get on some dry things."

"Thanks, I'll take the motor-boat back to the hotel. My cousins can go with the others. Ask the young Miss Campbell," he called after them, "if that low fellow didn't have the impertinence to call her 'Billie,' and speak to her as familiarly as if he were her equal?"

"He is her equal," exclaimed Mary, indignantly.

But of course the others only knew Edward as a very useful and capable boy who worked around the hotel at anything he could find to do. He had even been known to carry luggage, so anxious was he to earn money.