d said, in a lower tone, "You
wait here till I get back, will you? I want to talk to you."

The man paid no attention to him whatsoever. He was so far misled by
Van Bibber's appearance as to misunderstand the situation entirely.
"Oh, come now," he said, smiling knowingly at the girl, "you can't
shake me for no dude."

He put out his hand as he spoke as though he meant to touch her. Van
Bibber pulled his stick from under his arm and tossed it out of his
way, and struck the man twice heavily in the face. He was very cool
and determined about it, and punished him, in consequence, much more
effectively than if his indignation had made him excited. The man gave
a howl of pain, and stumbled backwards over one of the stoops, where
he dropped moaning and swearing, with his fingers pressed against his
face.

"_Please_, now," begged Van Bibber, quickly turning to Miss Cuyler, "I
am very sorry, but if you had _only_ gone when I asked you to." He
motioned impatiently with his hand. "Will you please go?"

But the girl, to his surprise, stood still and looked past him over
his shoulder. Van Bibber motioned again for her to pass on, and then,
as she still hesitated, turned and glanced behind him. The street had
the blue-black look of a New York street at night. There was not a
lighted window in the block. It seemed to have grown suddenly more
silent and dirty and desolate-looking. He could see the glow of the
elevated station at Allen Street, and it seemed fully a half-mile
away. Save for the girl and the groaning fool on the stoop, and the
three figures closing in on him, he was quite alone. The foremost of
the three men stopped running, and came up briskly with his finger
held interrogatively in front of him. He stopped when it was within a
foot of Van Bibber's face.

"Are you looking for a fight?" he asked.

There was enough of the element of the sport in Van Bibber to enable
him to recognize the same element in the young man before him. He knew
that this was no whimpering blackguard who followed women into side
streets to insult them; this was one of the purest specimens of the
tough of the East-Side water-front, and he and his companions would
fight as readily as Van Bibber would smoke--and they would not fight
fair. The adventure had taken on a grim and serious turn, and Van
Bibber gave an imperceptible shrug and a barely audible exclamation of
disgust as he accepted it.

"Because," continued his new opponent with busin