"All right," cried Locker. "And now, sir, how shall we fight? What have you got to fight with?"
"This is folly," growled Du Brant. "I have nothing to fight with. I do not fight with fists, like you Americans."
"Haven't you a penknife" coolly asked Locker. "If not, I daresay Mr. Hemphill will lend you one."
Du Brant now fairly trembled with anger. "When I fight," said he, "I fight like a gentleman; with a sword or a pistol."
"I am sorry," said Locker, "but if I remembered to bring my sword and pistol I must have put them in the bottom of my trunk, and that has gone on to the station. Have you two pistols or swords with you? Or do you think you could get sufficient satisfaction out of a couple of piles of stones that we could hurl at each other?"
Du Brant made no English answer to this, but uttered some savage remarks in French.
"Do you understand what all that means?" inquired Locker of Hemphill, who had been quietly listening to what had been going on.
"Yes," said the other, "he is cursing you up hill, and down dale."
"Oh," said Locker, "it sounds to me as if he were calculating his last week's expenses. But when he gets to French cursing, I drop him. I can't fight him that way."
The colored boy now showed that he was very much disappointed. He had expected the pleasure of a fight, and he was afraid he was going to lose it.