idn't you?"

I stared into his eyes blankly.

"Would you have done it?" I asked, in a sudden flash of illumination.

"Why, of course," said he, with a faint contempt, as he arose.

"Why did you hit me at first, as you did? You gave me no warning
whatever."

"Do you get any warning in a real fight?"

I could not controvert this; and yet uneasily, vaguely, I felt there
must be a fallacy somewhere. I had been told and not told, what should,
or should not, be done, in an affair that apparently could have no
rules, and yet had distinctions as to fair and unfair, some of which
were explained and some left as obvious. I felt somewhat confused. But
often in my later experience with Talbot Ward I felt just that way, so
in retrospect it does not strike me so forcibly as it did at that time.

"But you're a wonder! a perfect wonder!" Ward was saying.

Then we all became aware of a knocking and a rattling at the door. It
must have been going on for some time.

"If you don't open, I'll get the police! I promise you, I'll get the
police!" the voice of our landlady was saying.

We looked at each other aghast.

"I suppose we must have been making a little noise," conceded Talbot
Ward. Noise! It must have sounded as though the house were coming down.
Our ordinary little boxing matches were nothing to it.

Ward threw his military cape around his shoulders, and sank back into a
seat beneath the window. I put on an overcoat. One of the boys let her
in.

She was thoroughly angry, and she gave us all notice to go. She had done
that same every Saturday night for a year; but we had always wheedled
her out of it. This time, however, she seemed to mean business. I
suppose we _had_ made a good deal of a riot. When the fact became
evident, I, of course, shouldered the whole responsibility. Thereupon
she turned on me. Unexpectedly Talbot Ward spoke up from the obscurity
of his corner. His clear voice was incisive, but so courteous with the
cold finality of the high-bred aristocrat, that Mrs. Simpkins was cut
short in the middle of a sentence.

"I beg you, calm yourself, madam," said he; "it is not worth heating
yourself over: for the annoyance, such as it is, will soon be removed.
Mr. Munroe and myself are shortly departing together for California."

CHAPTER III

THE VOYAGE

If I had any scruples--and I do not remember many--they were overcome
within the next day or two. It was agreed that I was to go in Ward's
employ,