"All right!" cried the boy from the North. "I'll learn it, no thanks to you. More than that, if she needs my aid, she shall have it. It strikes me that she may have fled of her own accord to escape being persecuted by you. If so——"
"What then?"
"We'll meet again."
"That we will! Colonel Vallier may have settled his trouble with Professor Scotch, but mine is not settled with you."
"You are right."
"We may yet meet on the field of honor."
"I shall be pleased to accommodate you," flashed Frank; "and the sooner, the better it will satisfy me."
"Thot's th' talk!" cried Barney Mulloy, admiringly. "You can do th' spalpane, Frankie, at any old thing he'll name!"
"The disappearance of Miss ——, the Flower Queen, prevents the setting of a time and place," said Raymond, passionately; "but you shall be waited on as soon as she is found. Until then I must let nothing interfere with my search for her."
"Very good; that is satisfactory to me, and I will do my best to help find her for you. Now, if your business is quite over, gentlemen, your room would give us much more pleasure than your company."