“Well—I can’t prevent that,” observed the Doctor, coolly. “You’ve a right to walk which way you choose in this free country.”
“Thank’ee for giving me the information,” said Bob, in a satirical tone. “But of course I mean to stick to you till you’re so wearied of my company that you must come to a last struggle either to shake me off altogether, or perish yourself. For, mind, if I catch you asleep, Jack, I shall stick my clasp-knife into you up to the haft.”
“I’m obliged to you for letting me know your kind intentions beforehand,” observed the Doctor: “because I shall adopt precisely the same mode of warfare.”
“Now, then, we understand each other,” said Vitriol Bob; “and that’s a comfort. But it’s a great pity that two such fine fellers as you and me should be at loggerheads. Howsomever, it can’t be helped—and a reconcilement, or whatever they call it, is impossible. Your life or mine, Jack—that’s the question to be decided now.”
“Depend upon it, old fellow, that you’ll be a croaker before morning,” returned the Doctor, as he raised his glass to his lips.
“No—it’s you that’ll be a stiff’un, my boy,” was the pleasant retort.
“Time must show. Remember that it’s no infant you’ll have to deal with.”
“I should have beat you that night in the Haunted House, Jack, if the old o’oman hadn’t come to your assistance,” observed Vitriol Bob, with a low but diabolical chuckle.
“Yes—but it was because I slipped over something, old fellow,” was the answer; “and I shall take care to keep more steady on my pins next time.”
“Depend upon it that when the death-struggle does come, Jack, the fust that slips will be the dead ’un. Did you ever hear of the Kentuckian fashion of dealing with an enemy?” demanded Vitriol Bob.