He even timed him. He knew to within half-a-minute when the bright bull's-eye of his acetylene lantern would turn the corner of the Gypsies' Tryst. He saw it come. He stood up on his feet, and jerked his clenched hands once or twice forward into the gloaming.
Then Hugh John leaped from his cycle by the wall.
"Sit down, Nipper," he said. "I have something to say to you."
"Oh, I dare say," said Nipper; "you want to get out of fighting."
"Very well—you think so. I shall show you!" said Hugh John. "But first you have got to listen. You are troubling Elizabeth Fortinbras. She does not mean to be troubled. She will go away if you do not stop going into the shop. She told me so. She has always been my friend, and my sister's friend. Her father and mother are no use to such a girl. That is why I have tried to be a brother to her——"
"Brother, is it?" shouted Nipper, clenching his fists. "I will show you what it is to take a girl from Nipper Donnan. You were making love to her."
"I am her brother. She is my sister," Hugh John repeated, with his usual quiet persistency. "She is not yours in any way. Therefore I cannot take from you what you never possessed."
"I love her, and I will kill you, Hugh John Picton Smith!" moaned poor Nipper, his whole body shaking with impotent anger.
"Very well, you can try, though you are older," said Hugh John; "only, if I win, you will let Elizabeth Fortinbras alone."
"All right," said Nipper, "I agree. And if I lick you, you will stop prejudicing her against me!"