“All I want is a good opportunity,” declared Dunton. “I’d like to get at him. I’d do him up in a hurry.”
The fellow had a reputation as a “scrapper,” and he fully believed he could whip Merriwell easily.
“You can find an opportunity,” said Sargent. “I’d like to see you spoil his face. He thinks he’s handsome, and a pair of black eyes would break his heart.”
“I’ll give them to him,” promised Frank’s new enemy.
“Oh, he’ll make an awful mess of the whole play! Just think of him in the duel scene with me! And I’ve got to let him disarm me and get the best of the duel! Gods! it’s enough to make a man daffy!”
“The whole business will be a farce,” Sargent consolingly declared. “Havener will be to blame for it.”
“That’s right. I’d like to tell Havener what I think of him.”
“Then why don’t you do it!” exclaimed another voice, and Cassie Lee suddenly appeared from behind some loose scenery. “I’d like to see you! I’ll bet you don’t dare peep to him, but you raise a big blow behind his back. You’re a stiff! That’s my opinion of you, Dug Dunton!”
The soubrette was aroused now, and her accustomed languid, weary air had vanished completely. Her eyes, generally dull and heavy, except when she had resorted to the stimulation of morphine, were full of fire and scorn.
Sargent gasped and seemed to feel like sneaking away, but Dunton brazened it out.