nve'sition, you Yankee clown?
Do you igno' dad you 'ave insult me, off-scow'ing?"

Frowenfeld's first response was a stern gaze. When he spoke, he said:

"Sir, I am not aware that I have ever offered you the slightest injury
or affront; if you wish to finish your conversation with this gentleman,
I will wait till you are through."

The Creole bowed, as a knight who takes up the gage. He turned to
Valentine.

"Valentine, I was sayin' to you dad diz pusson is a cowa'd and a sneak;
I repead thad! I repead id! I spurn you! Go f'om yeh!"

The apothecary stood like a cliff.

It was too much for Creole forbearance. His adversary, with a long snarl
of oaths, sprang forward and with a great sweep of his arm slapped the
apothecary on the cheek. And then--

What a silence!

Frowenfeld had advanced one step; his opponent stood half turned away,
but with his face toward the face he had just struck and his eyes
glaring up into the eyes of the apothecary. The semicircle was
dissolved, and each man stood in neutral isolation, motionless and
silent. For one instant objects lost all natural proportion, and to the
expectant on-lookers the largest thing in the room was the big,
upraised, white fist of Frowenfeld. But in the next--how was this? Could
it be that that fist had not descended?

The imperturbable Valentine, with one preventing arm laid across the
breast of the expected victim and an open hand held restrainingly up for
truce, stood between the two men and said:

"Professor Frowenfeld--one moment--"

Frowenfeld's face was ashen.

"Don't speak, sir!" he exclaimed. "If I attempt to parley I shall break
every bone in his body. Don't speak! I can guess your explanation--he is
drunk. But take him away."

Valentine, as sensible as cool, assisted by the kinsman who had laid a
hand on his arm, shuffled his enraged companion out. Frowenfeld's still
swelling anger was so near getting the better of him that he
unconsciously followed a quick step or two; but as Valentine looked back
and waved him to stop, he again stood still.

"_Professeur_--you know,--" said a stranger, "daz Sylvestre
Grandissime."

Frowenfeld rather spoke to himself than answered:

"If I had not known that, I should have--" He checked himself and left
the place.

* * * * *

While the apothecary was gathering these experiences, the free spirit of
Raoul Innerarity was chafing in the shop like an eagle in a hen-coop.
One