"Ye samed doying fer a bit av a row, profissor."
"What if he had struck me!" palpitated the little man. "Oh, gracious! It would have been terrible!"
"For him. If he'd struck you, you'd been so mad that nothing could have stopped you. You would have waded into him, and given him the worst thrashing he ever received."
"Thot's pwhat ye would, profissor, sure as fate."
Scotch began to revive, and the words of the boys convinced him that he was really a very brave man, and had done a most daring thing. Little by little, he began to swell, like a toad.
"I don't know but you're right," he said, stiffening up. "I was utterly reckless and desperate at the time."
"That's right, professor."
"Profissor, ye're a bad mon ter buck against."
"That is a fact that has not been generally known, but, having cowed one of the most desperate duelists in the South, and forced him to apologize, I presume I have a right to make some pretensions."
"That's a fact."