“Your solicitude for Miss Ketchum was quite needless, sir,” declared Zenas. “I am quite capable of looking out for her.”
“Suh, yo’ may relieve yo’self of any trouble, suh,” retorted the man from Natchez.
“I couldn’t think of it, sir, not for a moment, sir,” shot back the professor. “It might be trouble for you, sir, but it is a pleasure for me.”
“The old boy is there with the goods,” chuckled Brad.
But Major Fitts was not to be rebuffed in such a manner.
“Considering your age and your physical infirmities, suh,” he said, “I think Miss Ketchum will excuse yo’.”
That was too much for Zenas.
“My age, sir!” he rasped, lifting his cane. “Why, you antiquated old fossil, I’m ten years younger than you! My infirmities, sir! You rheumatic, malaria-sapped back number, I’m the picture of robust, bounding health beside you!”
“Gentlemen!” gasped Sarah Ann, in astonishment and dismay.
“Don’t yo’ dare threaten me with your cane, suh!” fumed the major. “If yo’ do, suh, I’ll take it away from yo’ and throw it overbo’d, and yo’ need it to suppo’t your tottering footsteps, suh.”