m ready to give you all the fightin' that's wanted. Come on, and be
funny same's you was a minute ago."

"I ain't got any row with you, Dan Roberts," Sam muttered.

"What's the reason you haven't got as much of a one with me as you had
with Seth? We're partners, an' he never said half the rough things about
you that I have."

"Leave me alone, or I'll yell for the perlice!"

"I thought you wasn't achin' terrible bad for a fight," and Dan
flourished his fists precisely as Sam had done while trying to provoke
Seth. "Yell for the perlice, will yer? I've a precious good mind to give
you a couple of black eyes, only that I hate to hit a feller who don't
dare to put up his hands."

"Come on, Dan, don't spend your time with him!" Seth cried. "He won't
fight, an' never would. There wouldn't been any bluff made if he hadn't
known I'd promised myself not to get the name of bein' a bruiser."

Dan did as his partner suggested, and the would-be detective remained
quietly in the gutter until the two were half a block away, when he
arose and cried vindictively:

"I'll get square with you fellers yet! We'll see whether Seth Bartlett
swells 'round headquarters much longer!"

"Don't say a word," Seth whispered as Dan half turned to make some
reply. "All he wants is to get me into a row, an' it'll please the chump
too well if we chin with him. I'm sorry you let yourself out."

"I ain't. I reckon that much of a fight won't count very hard against
the Third Avenoo store, for I'll earn jest as big a pile of money
to-morrow as if I'd let him make his bluff; but it might er been
different with you."

Seth was by no means pleased with the outcome of this affair, although
he did not say as much to his partner.

It seemed as if he had acted a cowardly part in allowing Sam to insult
him, and then remain passive while Dan took up the quarrel.

He was positive he ought never to fight simply to please a bully, but
equally confident that he was not manly to stand still while a fellow
like Sam Barney imposed upon him.

It was a matter which he could not settle satisfactorily in his own
mind, for whatever course he might have pursued seemed to be wrong.

"I'll see what Mr. Davis thinks about it," he said to himself, and then
added to Dan, "It was mighty good of you, old man, to give Sam one clip
for me; but I can't make out whether I ought'er stood still or put up my
hands."

"Don't bother your head about it," Master Roberts replied car