sir, get ready."

Colonel Vallier actually staggered.

"Sah--sah!" he fluttered; "you're shorely 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?"

The colonel gasped.

"Apologize! Why, I can't----"

"Then I'm going to give you those black eyes just as sure as my name is
Scotch! Put up your fists!"

The colonel retreated, holding up his hands helplessly, while the
professor pranced after him like a fighting cock.

"This is disgraceful!" snapped Rolf Raymond, taking a step, as if to
interfere. "It must be stopped at once!"

"Hold on!" came sternly from Frank. "Don't chip in where you're not
wanted, Mr. Raymond. Let them settle this matter themselves."

"Thot's roight, me laddybuck," said Barney Mulloy. "If you bother thim,
it's a pair av black oies ye may own yersilf."

"We did not come here to be bullied."

"No," said Frank; "you came to play the bullies, and the tables have
been turned on you. Take it easy."

The two boys placed themselves in such a position that they could
prevent Raymond from interfering between the colonel and the professor.

"Don't strike me, sah!" gasped Vallier, holding up his open hands, with
the palms toward the bantam-like professor.

"Then do you apologize?"

"You will strike me if I do not apologize?"

"You may bet your life that I will, colonel."

"Then I--ah--I'll have to apologize, sah."

"And this settles the entire affair between us?"

"Eh--I don't know about that."

"Well, you had better know. Does this settle the entire affair?"

"I suppose so, sah."

"You apologize most humbly?"

"I do."

"And you state of your own free will that this settles all trouble
between us?"

The colonel hesitated, and Scotch lifted his fists menacingly.

"I do, sah--I do!" Vallier hastened to say.

"Then that's right," said Professor Scotch, airily. "You have escaped
the worst thumping you ever received in all your life, and you should
congratulate yourself."

Frank felt like cheering with delight. Surely Professor Scotch had done