Betty could never bear to see a person or an animal unfairly treated, and when, as now, the odds were all against one, she became a veritable little fury. As Bob had once said in a mixture of admiration and despair she wasn’t old enough to be afraid of anything or anybody.
“How dare you treat him like that!” she cried, running to the table where the Chinaman sat in a daze. “You ought to be arrested! If you must torment some one, why don’t you get somebody who can fight back?”
The men stared at her open-mouthed, bewildered by her unexpected championship of their bait. Then a great, coarse, blowzy-faced man, with enormous grease spots on his clothes, winked at the others.
“My eye, we’ve a visitor,” he drawled. “Sit down, my dear, and John Chinaman shall bring you chop suey for lunch.”
Betty drew back as he put out a huge hand.
“You leave her alone!” Bob had come after Betty and stood glaring at the greasy individual. “Anybody who’ll treat a foreigner as you’ve treated that Chinaman isn’t fit to speak to a girl!”
A concerted growl greeted this statement.
“If you’re looking for a fight,” snarled a younger man, “you’ve struck the right place. Come on, or eat your words.”
Now Bob was no coward, but there were five men arrayed against him with a probable sixth in the form of the counter-man who was watching the turn of affairs with great interest from the safe vantage-point of his high counter. It was too much to expect that any men who had dealt with a defenceless and handicapped stranger as these had dealt with the Chinaman would fight fair. Besides, Bob was further hampered by the terrified Betty who clung tightly to his arm and implored him not to fight. It seemed to the lad that the better part of valor would be to take to his heels.