A HUMBLE APOLOGY.
Barely were they in their apartments at the hotel when there came a
knock on the door, and a boy entered, bearing a salver on which were two
cards.
"Colonel La Salle Vallier and Mr. Rolf Raymond," read Frank. "Bring them
up."
"What's that?" roared Professor Scotch, from the bed. "Are you crazy?"
Frank hustled the boy out of the room, whispering:
"Bring them up, and admit them without knocking."
He slipped a quarter into the boy's hand, and the little fellow grinned
and hurried away.
Frank turned back to find Professor Scotch, in his night robe, standing
square in the middle of the bed, wildly waving his arms, and roaring:
"Lock the door--barricade it--keep them out! If those desperadoes are
admitted here, this room will run red with gore!"
"That's right, professor," agreed Frank. "We'll settle their hash right
here and at once. We'll cook 'em."
"Whoop!" shouted the little professor, in his big, hoarse voice. "This
is murder--assassination! Lock the door, I say! I am in no condition to
receive visitors."
"Be calm, professor," chirped Frank, soothingly.
"Be calm, profissor," echoed Barney, serenely.
"Be calm!" bellowed the excited little man. "How can I be calm on the
eve of murder and assassination? I am an unarmed man, and I am not even
dressed!"
"Niver moind a little thing loike thot," purred the Irish lad.
"It's of no consequence," declared Frank, placidly.
"No consequence!" shouted Scotch. "Oh, you'll drive me crazy! You want
me to be killed! It is a plot to have me murdered! I see through the
vile scheme! I'll call the police!"
He rushed into the front room, and flung up a window, from which he
howled:
"Fire! Police!"
He would have shrieked murder and several other things, but Frank and
Barney dragged him back and closed the window.
"Great Scott!" gasped Frank. "It'll be a wonder if the whole police
force of the city does not come rushing up here."
"Perhaps they'll not be able to locate th' spot from which th' croy
came," said Barney. "Let us hope not."
"Yes, let us hope not."
The professor squirmed out of the grasp of the two boys, and made a wild
dash for the door.
Just before he reached it, the door was flung open, and Colonel Vallier,
followed by Rolf Raymond, strode into the room.
The colonel and the professor met just within the doorway.
The collision was violent, and both men recoiled and sat down heavily
upon the floor, while Rolf Raymond barely saved himself from falling
astride the colonel's neck.
Sitting thus, the two men glared at each other, the colonel being in a
dress suit, while the professor wore a night robe.
Frank and Barney could not restrain their laughter.
Then a most remarkable thing happened.
Professor Scotch became so angry at what he considered the unwarranted
intrusion of the visitors that he forgot how he was dressed, forgot to
be scared, and grew fierce as a raging lion. Without rising, he leaned
forward, and shook his fist under Colonel Vallier's nose, literally
roaring:
"What do you mean by entering this room without knocking, you miserable
old blowhard? You ought to have your face thumped, and, by thunder! I
believe I can do it!"
"Sah!" gasped the colonel, in the greatest amazement and dismay.
"Don't 'sah' me, you measly old fraud!" howled Scotch, waving his fists
in the air. "I don't believe in fighting, but this is about my time to
scrap. If you don't apologize for the intrusion, may I be blown to ten
thousand fragments if I don't give you a pair of beautiful black eyes!"
"Sah, there seems to be some mistake, sah," fluttered Colonel Vallier,
turning pale.
"You made the mistake!" thundered Scotch, leaping to his feet like a
jumping jack. "Get up here, and let me knock you down!"
"I decline to be struck, sah."
"You don't dare to get up!" howled the excited little man, growing still
worse, as the colonel seemed to shrink and falter. "Why, I can lick you
in a fraction of no time! You've been making lots of fighting talk, and
now it's my turn. Get up and put up your fists."
"Will somebody kindly hold this lunatic?" palpitated Colonel Vallier. "I
am no prize-fightah, gentlemen."
"That isn't my lookout," said the professor, who was forcing things
while they ran his way. "Get up and take off your coat! We'll settle
this affair without delay."
"With pistols, sah?"
"Yes, with pistols, if you want to!" cried the professor, to the
amazement of the boys. "I am ready, sir. We will settle it with pistols,
at once, in this room."
"But this is no place foh a duel, sah; yo' should know that, sah."
"This is just the place."
"The one who survives will be arrested, sah."
"There won't be a survivor, so you needn't fear arrest."
"No survivah, sah?"
"No."
"How is that?"
"I'll tell you how it is. You are such a blamed coward that you won't
fight me with your fists, for fear I will give you the thumping you
deserve; but you know you are a good pistol shot, and you think I am
not, so you hope to shoot me, and escape without harm to yourself. Well,
I am no pistol shot, but I am not going to miss you. We'll shoot across
that center table, and the width of the table is the distance that will
divide us. In that way, I'll stand as good a show as you do, and I'll
agree to shoot you through the body very near to the heart, so you'll
not linger long in agony. Come, sir, get ready."
Colonel Vallier actually staggered.
"Sah--sah!" he fluttered; "you're shorely crazy!"
"Not a bit of it. Come, get ready!"
"This is murder, sah!"
"It is a square deal. One has as good show as the other."
"But I--I never heard of such a duel--never!"
"There are many things you have never heard about, Colonel Vallier."
"But, sah, I can't fight that way! You'll have to excuse me, sah."
"What's that!" howled the little professor, dancing about in his night
robe. "Do you refuse to give me satisfaction?"
"I refuse to be murdered."
"Then you'll apologize?"
The colonel gasped.
"Apologize! Why, I can't----"
"Then I'm going to give you those black eyes just as sure as my name is
Scotch! Put up your fists!"
The colonel retreated, holding up his hands helplessly, while the
professor pranced after him like a fighting cock.
"This is disgraceful!" snapped Rolf Raymond, taking a step, as if to
interfere. "It must be stopped at once!"
"Hold on!" came sternly from Frank. "Don't chip in where you're not
wanted, Mr. Raymond. Let them settle this matter themselves."
"Thot's roight, me laddybuck," said Barney Mulloy. "If you bother thim,
it's a pair av black oies ye may own yersilf."
"We did not come here to be bullied."
"No," said Frank; "you came to play the bullies, and the tables have
been turned on you. Take it easy."
The two boys placed themselves in such a position that they could
prevent Raymond from interfering between the colonel and the professor.
"Don't strike me, sah!" gasped Vallier, holding up his open hands, with
the palms toward the bantam-like professor.
"Then do you apologize?"
"You will strike me if I do not apologize?"
"You may bet your life that I will, colonel."
"Then I--ah--I'll have to apologize, sah."
"And this settles the entire affair between us?"
"Eh--I don't know about that."
"Well, you had better know. Does this settle the entire affair?"
"I suppose so, sah."
"You apologize most humbly?"
"I do."
"And you state of your own free will that this settles all trouble
between us?"
The colonel hesitated, and Scotch lifted his fists menacingly.
"I do, sah--I do!" Vallier hastened to say.
"Then that's right," said Professor Scotch, airily. "You have escaped
the worst thumping you ever received in all your life, and you should
congratulate yourself."
Frank felt like cheering with delight. Surely Professor Scotch had done
himself proud, and the termination of the affair had been quite
unexpected by the boys.