"Do you mean to tell me that that little girl is being beaten because she threw back that dirty gorilla's coin to him?"
Spring Morning nodded, and the tears that came suddenly to her eyes revealed that the girl within had all of her sympathy.
"The devil she is!" Jerry Hammond turned to his friends, "Are we going to stand for this?" demanded Jerry.
"Not by a dashed sight!" shrilly responded the youngest of the party, a youth of seventeen, whose heavy bone-ribbed glasses gave him a preternaturally wise look.
The older man of the party here interposed with an admonitory warning:
"Now, boys, I advise you to keep out of these oriental scraps. We don't want to get mixed up in any teahouse brawls. These Japanese girls are used——"
"She's not a Japanese girl," furiously denied Jerry. "She's as white as we are. Did you see her hair?"
"Nevertheless——" began Professor Barrowes, but was instantly silenced by his clamouring young charges.
"I," said Jerry, "propose to go on a privately conducted tour of investigation into the infernal regions of that house of alleged joys. If any of you fellows have cold feet, stay right here snug with papa. I'll go it alone."
That was quite enough for the impetuous youngsters. With a whoop of derision at the idea of their having "cold feet," they were soon following Jerry in a rush upon the house that was reminiscent of football days.