"For shame, Danny Rugg, to hit Bert so hard as that!" cried Nan.

"Oh, you keep still, Nan Bobbsey!" retorted Danny. "This is our sport,
not yours."

"But you shouldn't have come so close before you threw the snowball."

"I know what I'm doing," growled the big boy, running off.

The whack in the ear made that member ache, and Bert did not feel near
so full of fun when he entered the schoolyard. Several of his friends
came up to him in sympathy.

"Did he hurt you very much, Bert?" asked one.

"He hurt me enough. It wasn't fair to come so close, or to make the
snowballs so hard."

"Let us duck Danny in the snow," suggested one of the boys.

This was considered a good plan, but nobody wanted to start in, for, as
I have said before, Danny was a good deal of a bully, and could get very
rough at times.

While the boys were talking the matter over, the school bell rang and
all had to go to their classrooms. In a little while Bert's ear stopped
aching, but he did not forget how Danny Rugg had treated him.

"I'll pay him back when we go home to dinner," Bert told himself, and
laid his plans accordingly.