"Gad!" cried Jack. "Has the Count challenged him? What a lark!"
"Nonsense!" Harbinger said. "You can't be serious, Bradish?"
"No, I'm not very serious about it, but I assure you the Count is."
"Challenged me?" demanded Barnstable, tearing open the epistle. "What does the dago mean? He says—what's that word?—he says his honor ex—expostulates my blood. Of course I shan't fight."
Bradish shook his head, although he could not banish the laughter from his face.
"Blood is what he wants. He says he shall have to run you through in the street if you won't fight."
"Oh, you'll have to fight!" put in Jack.
"The Count's a regular fire-eater," declared Tom. "You wouldn't like to be run through in the street, Barnstable."
Barnstable looked from one to another as if he were unable to understand what was going on around him.
"Curse it!" he broke out, his face assuming its apoplectic redness. "Curse those fellows that write novels! Here I've got to be assassinated just because some confounded scribbler couldn't keep from putting my private affairs in his infernal book! It's downright murder!"