CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
MASTER PHILIP.
"What! I caught you then, did I ?" cried a sharp unpleasant voice.
"Just dropped upon you, did I, my fine fellow?
You scoundrel, how dare you steal our peaches!" The speaker was a boy of somewhere about my own age, and as I faced him I saw that he was thin, and had black hair, a yellowish skin, and dark eyes.

He was showing his rather irregular teeth in a sneering smile that made his hooked nose seem to hang over his mouth, while his high-pitched, harsh, girlish voice rang and buzzed in my ears in a discordant way.
I did not answer; I felt as if I could not speak.

All I wanted to do was to fly at him and strike out wildly, while something seemed to hold me back as he stood vapouring before me, swishing about the thin, black, silver-handled cane he carried, and at every swish he cut some leaf or twig.
"How dare you strike me ?" I cried at last furiously, and I advanced with my teeth set and my lists clenched, forgetting my position there, and not even troubling myself in my hot passion to wonder who or what this boy might be.
"How dare I, you ugly-looking dog!" he cried, retreating before me a step or two.

"I'll soon let you know that.

Who are you, you thief ?" "I'm not a thief," I shouted, wincing still with the pain.
"Yes, you are," he cried.