"Step lively, then," said Jack, "for I've an engagement to dance the next waltz."
"I'll waltz you all you'll need this evenin'."
But before he had finished speaking Ben Tremont stepped around the corner.
"Hello, Jack! What is this I see?" said Ben. "Disgracing yourself by talking with these hoodlums."
"Yas, deah boy," drawled Jack. "This—er, what shall I call him?—stopped me to tell me he was going to rub the marks off me, at the same time wittily making a pun on my name. I was just telling him to hurry, or I'd miss the next waltz."
"Well, I'll take the job off your hands. Stella was asking for you a moment ago."
"Yes, run along to your Stella," said the hoodlum. "I reckon she's pining for the sassiety o' another dude."
That was where he made the mistake of his life.
It didn't really make much difference what these fellows said about themselves, but the boys would not permit Stella's name to be bandied about by the roughs.
So swiftly, that they didn't know what had happened to them, both Ben and Jack sailed into them.