"If I were to attempt to do so I don't think that I should succeed. But, in any case, after my experience of this morning, it will be a long time before I make any more experiments on any one."
"Is that so? Think it over, Mr. Pownceby, while I lock this door and slip the key into my pocket."
Mr. Pratt locked the door and "slipped," as he called it, the key into his pocket.
"Mr. Pratt, I insist upon your unlocking that door."
"Mr. Pownceby, I was raised out West, and I was raised fighting, and I learnt to smell a fight when it was coming, and there's as big a fight now coming as ever I yet smelt."
"Why do you use this language, sir, to me?"
"It's my ignorance, may be. But in those parts where I was raised, when one man played upon another man's wife the tricks you've played on mine, it generally ended up in fighting. You bet it's going to end in fighting now." Mr. Pownceby made a movement towards the bell. Mr. Pratt sprang in front of him. "You can ring the bell, sir, afterwards; but first you'll listen to me. They'll have to break the door down to get into this room, and that'll be a scandal; and while they're breaking it down I'll be whipping you. You'd better, take it fighting. I've got a shooter." Putting his hand to his pistol-pocket, Mr. Pratt flashed the barrel of a revolver in Mr. Pownceby's face. "But I know your English notions, and I don't want to use it in a little affair like this. Let's strip to the waist, and clear the furniture out of the middle of the room, and have a little prize-fight all to ourselves."
"Do you take me for a madman, Mr. Pratt? If you don't immediately unlock the door I shall summon assistance, and if you use any violence towards me, I shall give you into the charge of the police."
"Is that your line? That's mine!"
Dropping the hand which held the revolver, Mr. Pratt delivered with his left. Delivered so neatly, in the centre of Mr. Pownceby's forehead, that that gentleman was hurled backwards on to the floor.