“Do I? Then it’s your fault! If you hadn’t been making your fool experiments and monkeying with things that were all right, I wouldn’t be in this fix or the Saracen, either. But I’ll show you!”
“Do it—if you’re man enough!” taunted Step, in a fury at the aspersions cast on his mechanical skill.
Poke needed no second invitation. He hurled his ragged and grimy self at his partner, who, on his side, met the charge half-way. There was a wild exchange of unaimed blows, and then they came to a clinch. Sam sprang forward. So did Orkney. By their united efforts they separated the combatants and dragged them apart.
“Stop this scrapping!” Sam commanded, with a gruffness which was not lessened by knowledge that Zorn was grinning widely at the spectacle of discord in the club.
“Quit it!” Orkney ordered, still more curtly.
“Then make him take back what he said,” Step protested.
“It’s true!” shrilled Poke. “Way he left everything, ’twas like trying to drive a horse without reins or bridle!”
“Then you ought to have known enough not to try to ride the Saracen,” Step countered.
“You didn’t tell me.”
“Why didn’t you have sense enough to ask? If you’d had your eyes open as wide as your mouth——”