“Say, before I’ll take much of that from you I’ll punch your head!”
“So? Well, the nose is right here when you want to punch it. Come and punch it! But you won’t punch anything. You think you’re some fighter. Come on and punch once; just once!”
Clem was no coward and he possessed the cool judgment of a capable boxer. Moreover, he was taller, with a longer reach than Don. But he had to reckon with superior weight, probably greater strength and what counts more than all else—an indomitable spirit. Long brooding over what he considered an injustice on Don’s part in accepting all the reward for arresting the Germans, and for permitting others to give him more of the credit for personal bravery had made young Stapley more of an enemy than he had ever been.
How the fight would have ended was not to be known, however, for though Clem would have struck Don, he was prevented by the chauffeur who was by no means to be lightly reckoned with.
“Gwan, now, Clement, me boy! An’ you, too, young feller! I’ll mop up the floor here with both o’ you if you begin scratchin’ an’ bitin’! What would Mr. Stapley, me boss, say to me if I let you chaw each other up? Gwan, young feller!”—this to Don. “An’ you come here, Clement, an’ I’ll show you the true insides o’ this critter, from piston head to crank shaft.”
Don took this for both good advice and a logically sound invitation and turned on his heel. But he could not help feeling sorry that again Clem Stapley and himself were “at outs”.
[CHAPTER VII]
Getting In
Camps and training schools, learning how and drilling. This was the lot of Young America in the latter days of the year 1917 and in the earlier months of the succeeding year, a year long to be remembered and to cut a mighty figure in the history of the United States.