"What did he say?"
"He asked me how old I was, at first—in such a tone! I answered that I was old enough to know my way about, I hoped. He said he should have thought not, as I travelled with my nurse. Then he wanted to know what was in Souris' pack, whether I carried condensed milk for my nursing-bottle. It was all I could do to keep from boxing his ears, before everyone, but I kept still, and laughed a little; presently I answered in a drawling sort of way, saying I needn't tell him that what Souris carried was no affair of his, because when I came to think of it, after all it was quite natural that a great donkey should be interested in a small one."
"By Jove, you little fire-eater!"
"Well, I had to show him that I was an American, anyhow."
"I suppose he was annoyed."
"He was very much annoyed. Man, he's challenged me to fight a duel. Only think of it, a real duel! He said I'd have to fight, or he'd thrash me for a coward. I—it's a horrid scrape, but I don't see how I'm going to get out of it with—with honour. Will you—if I do have to—but look here, I won't have him running me through with a sword, or anything of that sort. I'm afraid I couldn't face that. I wouldn't mind a revolver quite as much."
"The big bully!" I exclaimed. "But of course it's all rot. There can be no question of your fighting him."
"I don't know. I'd rather do that—if we could have pistols—than have him think an American—could be a coward. I'm not a coward, I hope, only—only I never thought of anything like this. He's going to send a friend of his to call on you, as a friend of mine, he said. I suppose that means a what-you-may-call-'em—a 'second,' doesn't it? If I must fight with him, Man, you will be my second, won't you, and—and act for me, if that's the right word?"
Gazing up earnestly, his eyes very big, his face pale, he looked no more than fourteen, and the idea of a duel to the death between this child and Gaetà's whirlwind would have been comic in the extreme, had I not been enraged with the whirlwind.
"I'll be your friend, and get you out of the scrape," I said. "But it will mean that you must give up the Contessa."