Frank Merriwell Down South Part 31

"Be calm, professor," chirped Frank, soothingly.

"Be calm, profissor," echoed Barney, serenely.

"Be calm!" bellowed the excited little man. "How can I be calm on the eve of murder and a.s.sa.s.sination? I am an unarmed man, and I am not even dressed!"

"Niver moind a little thing loike thot," purred the Irish lad.

"It's of no consequence," declared Frank, placidly.

"No consequence!" shouted Scotch. "Oh, you'll drive me crazy! You want me to be killed! It is a plot to have me murdered! I see through the vile scheme! I'll call the police!"

He rushed into the front room, and flung up a window, from which he howled:

"Fire! Police!"

He would have shrieked murder and several other things, but Frank and Barney dragged him back and closed the window.

"Great Scott!" gasped Frank. "It'll be a wonder if the whole police force of the city does not come rushing up here."

"Perhaps they'll not be able to locate th' spot from which th' croy came," said Barney. "Let us hope not."

"Yes, let us hope not."

The professor squirmed out of the grasp of the two boys, and made a wild dash for the door.

Just before he reached it, the door was flung open, and Colonel Vallier, followed by Rolf Raymond, strode into the room.

The colonel and the professor met just within the doorway.

The collision was violent, and both men recoiled and sat down heavily upon the floor, while Rolf Raymond barely saved himself from falling astride the colonel's neck.

Sitting thus, the two men glared at each other, the colonel being in a dress suit, while the professor wore a night robe.

Frank and Barney could not restrain their laughter.

Then a most remarkable thing happened.

Professor Scotch became so angry at what he considered the unwarranted intrusion of the visitors that he forgot how he was dressed, forgot to be scared, and grew fierce as a raging lion. Without rising, he leaned forward, and shook his fist under Colonel Vallier's nose, literally roaring:

"What do you mean by entering this room without knocking, you miserable old blowhard? You ought to have your face thumped, and, by thunder! I believe I can do it!"

"Sah!" gasped the colonel, in the greatest amazement and dismay.

"Don't 'sah' me, you measly old fraud!" howled Scotch, waving his fists in the air. "I don't believe in fighting, but this is about my time to sc.r.a.p. If you don't apologize for the intrusion, may I be blown to ten thousand fragments if I don't give you a pair of beautiful black eyes!"

"Sah, there seems to be some mistake, sah," fluttered Colonel Vallier, turning pale.

"You made the mistake!" thundered Scotch, leaping to his feet like a jumping jack. "Get up here, and let me knock you down!"

"I decline to be struck, sah."

"You don't dare to get up!" howled the excited little man, growing still worse, as the colonel seemed to shrink and falter. "Why, I can lick you in a fraction of no time! You've been making lots of fighting talk, and now it's my turn. Get up and put up your fists."

"Will somebody kindly hold this lunatic?" palpitated Colonel Vallier. "I am no prize-fightah, gentlemen."

"That isn't my lookout," said the professor, who was forcing things while they ran his way. "Get up and take off your coat! We'll settle this affair without delay."

"With pistols, sah?"

"Yes, with pistols, if you want to!" cried the professor, to the amazement of the boys. "I am ready, sir. We will settle it with pistols, at once, in this room."

"But this is no place foh a duel, sah; yo' should know that, sah."

"This is just the place."

"The one who survives will be arrested, sah."

"There won't be a survivor, so you needn't fear arrest."

"No survivah, sah?"

"No."

"How is that?"

"I'll tell you how it is. You are such a blamed coward that you won't fight me with your fists, for fear I will give you the thumping you deserve; but you know you are a good pistol shot, and you think I am not, so you hope to shoot me, and escape without harm to yourself. Well, I am no pistol shot, but I am not going to miss you. We'll shoot across that center table, and the width of the table is the distance that will divide us. In that way, I'll stand as good a show as you do, and I'll agree to shoot you through the body very near to the heart, so you'll not linger long in agony. Come, sir, get ready."

Colonel Vallier actually staggered.

"Sah--sah!" he fluttered; "you're sh.o.r.ely crazy!"

"Not a bit of it. Come, get ready!"

"This is murder, sah!"

"It is a square deal. One has as good show as the other."

"But I--I never heard of such a duel--never!"

"There are many things you have never heard about, Colonel Vallier."

"But, sah, I can't fight that way! You'll have to excuse me, sah."

"What's that!" howled the little professor, dancing about in his night robe. "Do you refuse to give me satisfaction?"

"I refuse to be murdered."

"Then you'll apologize?"