"Now look here, you fresh bloke, you're in for a fine time! My brother and I have been looking for a long while to find the fellows who played Mike that dirty trick. We began to think we wouldn't ever locate 'em; but we have! You're the two, so you say. Well, I want to tell you that you were fools to give yourselves away, though we're mighty glad you did. It saves us a lot of trouble trying to find you."
"Then are you glad you found us?" asked Jimmy.
"You said it! Now you're in for the finest licking you ever had. I'm going to give you one, and my brother'll give you another. We're going to beat you up good and proper, and then we'll write back and tell Mike we met you. He gave us your names, but we didn't know where to look for you. Now we've found you, and, say, what we won't do to you won't be worth making a report on! Come on, Wilbur, take off your coat and start in on this other guy while I polish off this Blaise. I'll blaze his face for him!"
"Not here!" exclaimed Anson. "You can't fight here!"
"We can't? You just watch me!" snapped Aleck. "I'm going to——"
"No you're not!" broke in his brother, catching him by the arm and pulling him back. "We'll have to wait—here come the officers!"
As he spoke a group of brigade officers passed, and the two Bixtons, as well as Jimmy and Roger, saluted. The officers stood in a group not far away, discussing some matter. Obviously it was not the place for a fight. Even Aleck recognized that.
"All right!" he growled. "This'll have to wait. But don't get it in your head that we'll forget—you two!" he added. "I said we'd beat you up and we will—good and proper! Only we'll have to take another time. The next time we meet you there'll be something doing—don't forget that. There'll be something doing! We'll fix you yet, Blaise and Barlow!"
"That's what we will!" chimed in Wilbur. "We'll make you sorry you ever sent poor Mike to jail!"
"I doubt your last statement," said Jimmy, in an easy, though low voice, for none of the disputants cared to have the officers overhear them. "Mike deserved to go to jail, and there's where he is now, if he hasn't escaped. And we'll never be sorry we had a hand in sending him there. It's where he belongs!"