“Let her rest. Say what you like to bully me, Joe. It’s all true. I don’t fight against it. But you can’t understand it all. Say what you like, only go and leave me. I want to be alone.”
“Do you?” cried Pacey excitedly. “Then I don’t want you to be. So the Conte gave you that crack on the head, did he?”
“What!” cried Armstrong, springing up. “How came you to think that?”
“How came I to think that? Why, I was told by a chattering French ape.”
“Leronde? Told you?”
“Of course he did. Came to me to be your other second.”
“The idiot! Where is he?”
“Locked up where he’ll stay till I let him loose.”
Armstrong used a strong expression.
“And so we must have a duel, must we? Go out to Belgium to fight this Italian organ-grinder. Curse him, and his Jezebel of a wife!”