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“There! This lamp will do.”

A little firm brown hand had already seized upon the big lamp.

Uncle Isaac roused up. “No, no, my boy! Let go the lamp! Let go instantly!”

“Well, if you don’t want me to show you. But really, if my little finger were only big enough, I could lift the lamp just with that.”

Johnny shook the brown little finger almost in Uncle Isaac’s face.

“Why, what have you done to your face, John? You have a big scratch there.”

“Oh, that? Well, that’s—that’s nothing.”

“But how did you get it?”

“Why—it—it came so.”

“Came so? What do you mean?”

“Oh, we were fighting.”

“Why were you fighting?”

“It was just that stupid Tellef Olsen. He bragged so much about being the strongest of all the boys”—

“And then?”

“The whole school said he was the strongest, and that was disgusting, for it wasn’t true. I’m a great deal stronger than Tellef. I am really awfully strong, I am.”

“And so you fought?”

“Yes. I was up on the fence yesterday, and Tellef Olsen went past in the alley and hit me in the back with a long switch”—