"You lie!" spat out Carson. "It's one to one an' I see the game goes square." He stepped forward, removed the weapon from the table under Trevors's now suddenly changeful eyes, and went back to his place with his back to the wall.
"For God's sake!" cried the one nervous man in the room, he who had opened the door. "This is murder!"
Melvin smiled, a smile as cheerless as the gleam of wintry starlight on a bit of glass.
"Will you fight him, Trevors?" he asked. "With your hands?"
"Yes," answered Trevors. "Yes."
"Move back the table," commanded Melvin, on his feet in an instant. "And the chairs. Get them back."
The table was dragged to the far end of the room; the chairs were piled upon it.
"Now," and Melvin's watch was in his hand, his voice coming with metallic coldness, "it's to a finish, is it? Three-minute rounds, fair fighting, no——"
But now at last Bayne Trevors's blood was up, his slow anger had kindled, he was moving his feet restlessly.
"Damn it," he shouted, "whose fight is this but mine and Lee's? If he wants a fight, let him come and get it; a man's fight and rules and rounds and time be damned! Am I to dance around here and sidestep and fence just for you to look on?… Carson!"