I can't go with you; I've business on hand. But you needn't be afraid."

He had just ten minutes till school would call. Who was that, two blocks
off, loitering on a corner? Was it?--it was Jim Barrows.

[Illustration: "'Cheer up, Andy!' he said."]

With a dogged step that did not seem hurried, Pat yet went rapidly
forward. Straight up to the bully he walked and looked him firmly in the
eye. "You struck my brother Andy because you thought you could," he
said. And then, in the language of those Western boys, "he lit into
him." "'Tis Andy's fist is on you now!" he cried, while he rained blows
on the hulking coward, who did not offer to defend himself. "And there!"
with a tremendous kick as Jim Barrows turned to run, "is a taste of his
foot. Touch him again if you dare!"

Needless to say, he didn't dare. "I hear your brother Andy's been
fighting," said the principal, as he stopped Pat the next day in the
street. "At least, there are marks of Andy's fist and Andy's foot on Jim
Barrows." His eyes twinkled as he spoke and then grew grave again.
"Fighting's a bad thing in general, but you are excusable, my lad, you
are excusable."

Pat looked after the principal going with a quick firm step on his busy
way, and thought him the finest man in town, for, so far, nobody had
given the poor Irish boy a word of sympathy and encouragement.

That evening Pat ventured to tell his mother.

"And so that's what the principal said, is it?" commented Mrs.