It would have required sharper eyes than yours or mine to have observed
how Martin got on his legs again, but he did it in a twinkling, and was
half across the field almost before you could wink, and panting on the
heels of Bob Croaker. Bob saw him coming and instantly started off at a
hard run, followed by the whole school. A few minutes brought them to the
banks of the stream, where Bob Croaker halted, and, turning round, held
the white kitten up by the nape of the neck.

"O spare it! spare it, Bob!--don't do it--please don't, don't do it!"
gasped Martin, as he strove in vain to run faster.

"There you go!" shouted Bob, with a coarse laugh, sending the kitten high
into the air, whence it fell with a loud splash into the water.

It was a dreadful shock to feline nerves, no doubt, but that white kitten
was no ordinary animal. Its little heart beat bravely when it rose to the
surface, and, before its young master came up, it had regained the bank.
But, alas! what a change! It went into the stream a fat, round,
comfortable ball of eider-down. It came out--a scraggy blotch of white
paint, with its black eyes glaring like two great glass beads! No sooner
did it crawl out of the water than Bob Croaker seized it, and whirled it
round his head, amid suppressed cries of "Shame!" intending to throw it
in again; but at that instant Martin Rattler seized Bob by the collar of
his coat with both hands, and, letting himself drop suddenly, dragged the
cruel boy to the ground, while the kitten crept humbly away and hid
itself in a thick tuft of grass.

A moment sufficed to enable Bob Croaker, who was nearly twice Martin's
weight, to free himself from the grasp of his panting antagonist, whom he