“Challenge be hanged!” came hotly from the aroused Yankee boy. “Ef yeou’re an Englishman, I kin lick the stuffin’ aout uv yeou.”
“Sir, one Englishman is good faw three nawsty Americans.”
“Wal, I be derned ef it has proved that way in the past! The Yankees licked yeou in the fust place with a handful uv ragged, barefooted, half-starved fellers, an’ then, when yeou wasn’t satisfied an’ tried to play the bully on the high seas, the Yankees gave ye another good wallopin’. An ef yeou want it, yeou kin have some more uv the same medicine, only we’ll lick yer a darned sight wus the next time. We might jest ez well have it aout over Venezuela as anything else, but thutter! We’ll give ye Yankee Doodle and the Monroe Doctrine right aout uv the muzzles uv aour guns, and, by——”
Frank placed a restraining hand on his companion’s arm.
“Be quiet, Ephraim,” he said. “Sir,” turning to the stranger, “we have not the advantage of knowing you, and still I——”
“My name is Awthur Lumley, of London. I have a cawd, and——”
“Never mind your card,” smiled Frank. “I know you now, and I compliment you on your acting. You are Harvey Wynne, at one time a reporter on a New York newspaper.”
CHAPTER X.
“A MORT, ESPION!”
“’Sh!”