your advice,
if--you were like you used to be."

"It's you who have changed, not I."

"No, it's you."

"Don't let's dispute about it. Tell me what's the trouble. Has that
bounder been cheeking you?"

"Worse than that. He said things that made me angry, and--then I
checked him."

"Just now--under this tree?"

"It began at dinner, a little. But the particular thing I'm speaking
of happened here. I couldn't stand it, you know."

"What did he say?"

"He asked me how old I was, at first--in _such_ a tone! I answered
that I was old enough to know my way about, I hoped. He said he should
have thought not, as I travelled with my nurse. Then he wanted to know
what was in Souris' pack, whether I carried condensed milk for my
nursing-bottle. It was all I could do to keep from boxing his ears,
before everyone, but I kept still, and laughed a little; presently I
answered in a drawling sort of way, saying I needn't tell him that
what Souris carried was no affair of his, because when I came to think
of it, after all it was quite natural that a great donkey should be
interested in a small one."

"By Jove, you little fire-eater!"

"Well, I had to show him that I was an American, anyhow."

"I suppose he was annoyed."

"He was very much annoyed. Man, he's challenged me to fight a duel.
Only think of it, a real duel! He said I'd have to fight, or he'd
thrash me for a coward. I--it's a horrid scrape, but I don't see how
I'm going to get out of it with--with honour. Will you--if I do have
to--but look here, I won't have him running me through with a _sword_,
or anything of that sort. I'm afraid I couldn't face that. I wouldn't
mind a revolver quite as much."

"The big bully!" I exclaimed. "But of course it's all rot. There can
be no question of your fighting him."

"I don't know. I'd rather do that--if we could have pistols--than have
him think an American--could be a coward. I'm not a coward, I hope,
only--only I never thought of anything like this. He's going to send a
friend of his to call on you, as a friend of mine, he said. I suppose
that means a what-you-may-call-'em--a 'second,' doesn't it? If I must
fight with him, Man, you will be my second, won't you, and--and act
for me, if that's the right word?"

Gazing up earnestly, his eyes very big, his face pale, he looked no
more than fourteen, and the idea of a duel to the death between this
child and Gaeta's whirlwind would have been comic in the extreme, had
I not