CHAPTER XIII—MACKLYN MORGAN APPEARS.
CHAPTER XIII.
MACKLYN MORGAN APPEARS.
“Mate,” said Cap’n Wiley, as they hurried along the street on their way back to the hotel, “you are in every minute particular the finest specimen of exuberant manhood that it has ever been my fortune to associate with. Of course, I felt sure you would do up that fellow, but you came through the seething and turgid fray without so much as a scar. I don’t believe he even touched you once.”
“Yes, he did,” said Merry, “a couple of times. He hit me on the shoulder, but the blow was spent, and he caught me a fair one over the heart. I leaped away just in time to spoil the effectiveness of that.”
“But you are certainly the supreme fighter of this period of scrappers. If you chose to enter the ring, you might be champion of the world. It would delight my soul to be able to put up a real fight like that.”
“It disgusts me,” returned Merry.
“Wha-a-at?” gasped the sailor. “I think I fail to catch your meaning.”
“It disgusts me,” repeated Merry. “If there is anything that makes me feel degraded, it is being compelled to take part in a fight of that sort. I was practically forced into it on this occasion. I saw those fellows meant mischief, and I felt that the only way to settle the affair was to give that big duffer a thumping. It’s about the only reasoning a man can use on men of his calibre. Words and arguments fail to affect them, and a good thrashing moves them to respect.”