“I dare you to touch it, sir!” challenged the irascible old pedagogue, shaking the stick at the major’s nose.
Fitts made a grab, caught the cane, snatched it away, and sent it spinning overboard.
A moment later Zenas grappled with the man from Natchez, doing it so suddenly that the major was taken off his guard and sent flat upon his back on the deck, his assailant coming down heavily upon him.
Miss Ketchum screamed and fled.
In a moment Dick had the professor by the collar on one side while Brad grasped him by the collar on the other side. They dragged him off and stood him on his feet, although he vigorously objected and tried to maintain his hold on the other man.
“Here, here, professor!” exclaimed Merriwell; “you are disgracing yourself by your behavior.”
“He threw my cane overboard, the insolent, old, pug-faced sinner!” raged Zenas. “I’ll take its value out of his hide!”
The other passengers in the vicinity were looking on in mingled wonder and enjoyment, many of them being aware of the cause of the encounter between the two old chaps.
“See the kind of a scrape your foolish infatuation for the woman from Boston has led you into,” said Dick, in the ear of the professor. “Brace up! The passengers are laughing at you.”
Brad had assisted Major Fitts to rise. The little man was pale, and his eyes glared. He stood on his toes before Zenas, at whom he shook his fist, panting: