"Why don't you have it out, and have done with it?" he passionately cried, stopping short as they came round in view of the établissement and its frequenters. "If you keep on like this, you'll provoke me to kick you to ribbons."
Bertie smiled derisively. Kick him to ribbons! His legs were twice as long as Gall's, if it came to kicking. Not that Bertie would have played at that. "There's no chance of having it out with you," came the coolly contemptuous answer. "The only way which gentlemen use to 'have things out,' you don't understand. And you can't be expected to."
Leek espied them from a distance and came running up. It was at this moment that Mr. Loftus's glasses happened to fall upon them.
"Look at him, Onions," cried Bertie, indicating Gall by a sweep of the hand that was the very essence of insolent scorn. "He is asking me to go in for a game of kicking."
"I am saying that I'll kick you if you don't stop your row," cried Gall, his very lips white with passion. "And so I will."
"I never did see two such fellows as you," was Leek's comment. "You can't meet without insulting each other. What's come to you both?"
Bertie Loftus wheeled round on his heel in the soft sand, and confronted Gall closely, face nearly touching face. "Look here, here's a last chance—will you meet me?"
"Meet you?"
"Yes, meet me. Don't pretend to misunderstand. I have my pistols at the hotel."
"Perhaps you brought them on purpose," said Gall, with an unmistakable sneer.