Hashi looked surprised, but said:
“Wonderful much pleasure it would give if the excellent honorable American athlete would condescend to meet me in the contest of skill.”
“All right,” said Frank promptly. “Where shall it be?”
Fred Fillmore was somewhat surprised by Merry’s prompt acceptance of the smoothly delivered challenge. He had fancied it would be necessary to drive Frank into it through ridicule.
Frank was not pleased. He was dressed in evening clothes, and he had no desire to meet Hashi; but he had understood from the first that it was a scheme to force him into the meeting in some manner, and therefore he decided to meet the schemers halfway.
“The sooner it is over the better,” he thought.
Martin Manners and Bob Ridgely were somewhat disappointed. They were friends of Fillmore, and it had been arranged that they were to join in the ridicule of Merry in case he declined or seemed reluctant to meet the Jap.
Hashi had been told by Fillmore that it might be no easy matter to draw Frank into the snare, and he, also, was somewhat surprised.
“It is the exceeding great honor you are beneficently willing to bestow upon me?” he questioned.