Mandy had helped Arabella to her feet, and picked up her shawls, which had fallen off. She was more frightened than hurt, but her feelings were injured. Patricia, brushing the snow from her cloak, spoke her thoughts very plainly.
"Chub's a perfectly horrid boy," she said, "and we _might_ have broken our necks."
"And I shouldn't wonder if Ma had him put in the big lock-up," she said, "for scaring our horse, and tipping us out on the road. We may get _reumonia_ for being thrown into the snow."
"Ye can't 'rest Chub; he ain't nothin' but a big baby," said Mandy, "an' what's _reumonia_, anyway?"
Patricia would not reply. The driver helped them to pick up the cushions, but the bag of onions, which he had forgotten to take to the big house, he left where they lay in the road. They were too widely scattered to be gathered up.
Chub found a huge one, and commenced to eat it as eagerly as if it had been a luscious bit of fruit.
"Thith ith _fine_," he said as he took a big bite from the onion.
"That Chub's a regular little pig," Patricia said, as they rode off, but her words were not heard by Mandy or Chub, for the youthful driver was shouting a loud warning to Chub to throw no more snowballs for fear of a sound thrashing followed by arrest, while Chub, afraid to throw the snowballs, hurled after the pung the worst names that he could think of.
"That horthe ith thlow ath a old moolly cow! It'th an old thlow-poke! What a thkinny nag! That horthe eath nothin' but newthpaper and thtring!" he yelled.
"That Chub is just a horrid-looking child," said Patricia, "an' he's the Jimmy boy's brother, but nobody'd ever think it."
"Why, don't you know the boy that we see sometimes at Dorothy Dainty's house?"
"I mean the one that wears a cap with a gold band on it, and a coat with brass buttons, and tries to walk like a man when Mr. Dainty sends him out with parcels," explained Patricia.
"Oh, I know," said Arabella, "but _he's_ real _nice_ looking, and Dorothy says her father thinks he's smart. I shouldn't think he could be brother to that little pig or that Mandy girl."
"Well, he is, and one thing Dorothy said one day I couldn't understand. She said that one reason why her father was so kind to Jimmy is because Jimmy helped to get Nancy Ferris home one time when she was stolen from them. Did you ever hear 'bout that? I don't see how just a boy could do that, do you?"