Читать книгу The Radio Boys with the Iceberg Patrol; Or, Making safe the ocean lanes онлайн

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“Aw, what right have you to put me through the third degree?” he snarled. “I’ve told you once that I didn’t mean to, and that settles it.”

“No, it doesn’t settle it,” cried Joe, whose temper was of the hair-trigger variety. “I’m going to give you a thrashing right here and now.”

He made a move to throw off his coat, but Bob laid a restraining hand on his arm.

“Not this time, Joe,” he counseled. “Every dog, you know, is entitled to one bite. We’ll let this go for Buck’s first bite since he got back. It isn’t a dead certainty that he did it on purpose, though I believe he did. But I tell you this straight, Buck Looker, and you paste it in your hat. If anything like this happens again, you won’t get the benefit of the doubt, and I’ll give you the worst licking that you ever got in your life. I’ve thrashed you before, and you know that I can do it again. Now skip along before I change my mind and trim you right on the spot.”

Buck looked at first as though he were going to resent Bob’s words and tone, but a look at the latter’s fists that had involuntarily clenched themselves, made him think better of it, and, picking up the ball which, obeying his will, had caused the mischief, he and his crony slunk away, favoring the group with a malignant stare that told he was only biding his time to attempt some further rascality.