The patrons of the place had been thinning out for the last few minutes. Most of those remaining were near the front. Some of the waitresses were already seated at a table next to the kitchen slide, eating their suppers.
"Take him off me!" roared the man squirming on the floor under Tunis Latham's hand. "That thief of a girl set him on me. This is a nice thing, be overcharged and then assaulted!"
He was talking for the benefit of the black-haired man. The latter swooped down upon them. His face was purple with wrath and his fat jowls trembled.
"Let him up! Do you hear me?" he exclaimed.
"He insulted this lady," said Tunis, indicating the waitress. "You just heard him repeat it. He'll beg her pardon or I'll wring his neck."
"What do you mean?" cried the restaurant man. "What's the girl to you? One of her friends, are you? Well, you are doing her no good with me, I assure you."
The captain of the Seamew flung the little man face down upon the floor and held him there with his foot while he reached with both hands for the proprietor. He got him. The latter uttered a squeak like a captured rat.
"You're another of the same breed, are you?" Tunis demanded. "You'll beg her pardon, too, or I'll crack the heads of the two of you together! Come!"
He stood the man on his feet before the waitress with such force that his teeth rattled. He stooped and yanked the other to an upright posture likewise. The shrinking girl, Tunis noticed, was not weeping. She looked at all he did as though she approved. The other girls were shrieking. The cashier had run to the door and cried into the street for the police. But that violet-eyed girl, timid as she naturally was, did not open her lips.
"She's a plucky little lady," thought Tunis Latham. "But somebody's got to stand up for her."