"Wait a bit," he said calmly. "So far as I understand, this study belongs to Charlton and myself. We have a perfect right to lock the door."
"But not to lock us in," retorted Elgert. "Open it at once, and think yourself lucky that you don't get a licking for your impudence!"
"Steady!" was Ralph's answer. "It seems to me that if you had not been where you have no right to be, you would not have got locked in; and now that you are here, you must wait my pleasure as to going out."
This was beginning school life with a vengeance, but Ralph believed in settling things once and for all, and his indignation was hot as he saw what these half dozen lads had been doing.
But Horace Elgert was not a boy to be spoken to like that, and he came striding up to Ralph to take the key by force.
"I will soon settle you," he began, and he aimed a blow at this impertinent new boy's head, only somehow the blow did not get there. Ralph adroitly stepped aside, and the Honourable Horace Elgert stumbled to the ground violently.
"A fight! A fight!" cried the rest; but Ralph smiled and shook his head.
"Oh, no, my friends. I have something better to do, and this is not the place for fighting."
They were staggered. They could not understand this coolness and, moreover, they had all heard about Ralph having tackled the bull, and the story had grown somewhat. They stood considerably in awe of this boy from the Western plains, and they began to wish that they were anywhere else than in his study.
Horace Elgert got up, his face white with passion but he made no more attempts to take the key from Ralph.
"You are right," he said, in suppressed tones; "this is not the place to fight. Open the door, and we will soon settle things."
"Presently," was all the answer he got. "Now, then, let us see what you have been up to."
He glanced round at the books tumbled on the floor, at a desk upset, at an ink-bottle on its side, and then turned to his chum.
But Charlton was standing, looking very white, and staring at a picture on the wall--the picture of a lady, and beneath it some one had written--
"This is Charlton's mammy. But where is his daddy? Puzzle--Find daddy, and tell the police."
Ralph felt his nerves tingle. He felt sure that Elgert had done that, and he remembered the words of Lord Elgert respecting his own father.