“But do you mean to tell me,” said Wiley, “that you are not an admirer of the manly art of self-defense? Do you mean to tell me that you take no interest in the prize ring and the glorious heroes of it?”
“If there is anything for which I have absolutely no use,” said Merry, “it is a professional prize fighter. To me prize fighting is the most degrading of all the so-called sports.”
“This is more than passing strange,” said the sailor. “If such can be the case, will you elucidate to me how it happened that you ever learned to use your little dukes in such a marvelously scientific manner?”
“I think it is the duty of every American youth to learn to defend himself with his fists. No matter how peacefully inclined he is, no matter how much of a gentleman he is, no matter how much forbearance he may have, there is bound to come a time in his life when he will be forced to fight or suffer insults or bodily injury. As a rule, I never fight if I can avoid it. In this instance I might have avoided it for the time being, but I was certain that if I did so the matter would culminate in something more serious than a fistic encounter. Had I escaped from that saloon without meeting Spotted Dan, he and all his partners would have regarded me as afraid of them, and you know very well that they would have sought to force trouble on me at every opportunity. The easiest way to settle the whole matter was to fight then and there, and therefore I did so.”
“Well, you oughter feel proud of the job you did!”
“Instead of that, I feel as if I had lowered and degraded myself. I’ll not throw off the feeling for some time. To make the matter still worse, it was a saloon fight. However, I do not go there to drink. Out in this country the man who does business with the men he finds here is sometimes compelled to enter a saloon.”
“That’s true—quite true,” sighed Wiley. “I sometimes find it necessary to enter one myself.”
By this time they had reached the hotel, and as they entered the office Merry suddenly paused in surprise, his eyes fastened on a man who stood before the desk.
This man was tall and well dressed, with a somewhat ministerial face and flowing grayish side whiskers. He was speaking to the clerk.
“I see here the name of Mr. Frank Merriwell on the register,” he was saying. “Can you tell me where to find him?”