"You can go, and welcome, on our next trip, day after to-morrow; but we can't break into our regular work to set you across."
"No? Say twenty, then! And that's nowhere near what it'd be worth to me to be shut of you and your whole gang!"
"I'm beginning to think I did wrong in stopping that fight at Vinalhaven yesterday. Guess you needed all you got and more, too!"
In Percy's wrathful condition the reference to the pummeling he had received from Jabe came like a dash of acid in a raw wound. A flood of fury swept away his judgment.
"You beggar!" he shouted. "You dollar-squeezer! I'll teach you to talk to me, you—!"
He flung himself on Spurling with clenched fists.
So sudden and unexpected was the onslaught that there was but one thing for Jim to do, and he did it, expeditiously and accurately. Percy went over backward and fell like a log. For a moment he lay motionless, then staggered up, feeling of his face.
"What hit me?" he inquired, dazedly.
"I did—right on the point of the jaw. Sorry I had to. Feel better?"
Percy made no reply. Walking unsteadily to his bunk, he lay down. There was no violin-playing in the cabin that night.