“Caught a Tartar, eh, Bob?” scoffed another man.
The fellow on the deck “came to” then, and sprang up with every apparent intention of attacking me. I had shielded my chum, but it was plain that I had made an enemy.
“I’ll teach ye, ye young swab!” Bob ejaculated, and started for me.
But the others interfered. Several hustled the bully back.
“None o’ that, Bob Promise!” exclaimed the first speaker. “We’ll have the old man down here in a second.”
“I’ll break that feller’s neck!” cried Bob.
“I dunno whether ye will or not—in a stand up fight,” drawled another of his shipmates. “He looks like he could take care of himself.”
I had involuntarily fallen into an attitude of self-defense. That is where I had the advantage of Thank; I knew something about boxing, and although the bully was heavier and older than I, it was pretty certain that he had no science. At any rate I wasn’t going to let him think I was afraid of him.
“You wait!” growled Bob Promise. “You stand up to me in the watch below, and I’ll eat you alive.”
I had an idea that if he did I should disagree with his stomach badly; but I did not say this. I don’t think I am naturally a quarrelsome fellow, if I am impulsive. Nor did I wish to get in bad with the captain and officers of the ship by being mixed up in a fight.