Dick Merriwell's Pranks: or, Lively Times in the Orient. Standish Burt L.
sort of Bostonese has carried the old boy off his feet. Brad, the professor has lost his head over the lady from Boston, and it is up to you and me to rescue him from the peril that threatens him. He is in danger, and we must not falter.”
The steamer was swinging in to her mooring, but Professor Gunn was now too absorbed in Miss Ketchum and her talk to tell the boys anything about the two cities, that of the “Infidel” and that of the “Faithful,” which lay before them.
A man with a decidedly Oriental cast of countenance, but who wore English-made clothes, paused near the professor and Miss Ketchum, seemingly watching the boats which were swarming off to the steamer.
“Look, pard,” whispered Buckhart. “There’s the inquisitive gent who has bothered us so much – the one we found in our stateroom one day. He’s listening now to the professor and the Boston woman. I’ll bet my life on it.”
“I see him,” said Dick, yet without turning his head. “Brad, the man is spying on us.”
“I certain reckon so, and I’m a whole lot sorry we let him off without thumping him up when we found him in our stateroom.”
“He protested that he got in there by accident.”
“And lied like the Turk that he is!” muttered the Texan. “I’d give a whole bunch of steers to know what his name is.”
“He’s up to something. I found his name on the list of passengers.”
“What is it?”
“Aziz Achmet.”
“I knew he was an onery full-blooded Turk. His cognomen proves it.”
“He’s a subject of the sultan, beyond question. Something tells me we are going to have trouble with that man.”
“Well, he wants to lay his trail clear of mine,” growled Buckhart. “I’m getting a heap impatient with him, and I’ll be liable to do him damage if he provokes me further by his sneaking style.”
A little man with a very fierce, gray mustache and imperial came dodging hither and thither amid the passengers, caught sight of Miss Ketchum, hastened forward, doffed his military hat, and made a sweeping bow.
“Madam,” he said, “it will affo’d me great pleasure to see yo’ safely on shore.”
“My dear Major Fitts,” said Sarah Ann, “I am truly grateful for your gallant thoughtfulness. Professor, permit me to introduce you to Major Mowbry Fitts, of Natchez, Mississippi. Major, this is Professor Zenas Gunn, principal of Fardale Military Academy, a very famous school.”
“Haw!” said Professor Gunn, bowing stiffly.
“Ha!” said Major Fitts, in his most icy manner.
Then they glared at each other.
“Your solicitude for Miss Ketchum was quite needless, sir,” declared Zenas. “I am quite capable of looking out for her.”
“Suh, yo’ may relieve yo’self of any trouble, suh,” retorted the man from Natchez.
“I couldn’t think of it, sir, not for a moment, sir,” shot back the professor. “It might be trouble for you, sir, but it is a pleasure for me.”
“The old boy is there with the goods,” chuckled Brad.
But Major Fitts was not to be rebuffed in such a manner.
“Considering your age and your physical infirmities, suh,” he said, “I think Miss Ketchum will excuse yo’.”
That was too much for Zenas.
“My age, sir!” he rasped, lifting his cane. “Why, you antiquated old fossil, I’m ten years younger than you! My infirmities, sir! You rheumatic, malaria-sapped back number, I’m the picture of robust, bounding health beside you!”
“Gentlemen!” gasped Sarah Ann, in astonishment and dismay.
“Don’t yo’ dare threaten me with your cane, suh!” fumed the major. “If yo’ do, suh, I’ll take it away from yo’ and throw it overbo’d, and yo’ need it to suppo’t your tottering footsteps, suh.”
“I dare you to touch it, sir!” challenged the irascible old pedagogue, shaking the stick at the major’s nose.
Fitts made a grab, caught the cane, snatched it away, and sent it spinning overboard.
A moment later Zenas grappled with the man from Natchez, doing it so suddenly that the major was taken off his guard and sent flat upon his back on the deck, his assailant coming down heavily upon him.
Miss Ketchum screamed and fled.
In a moment Dick had the professor by the collar on one side while Brad grasped him by the collar on the other side. They dragged him off and stood him on his feet, although he vigorously objected and tried to maintain his hold on the other man.
“Here, here, professor!” exclaimed Merriwell; “you are disgracing yourself by your behavior.”
“He threw my cane overboard, the insolent, old, pug-faced sinner!” raged Zenas. “I’ll take its value out of his hide!”
The other passengers in the vicinity were looking on in mingled wonder and enjoyment, many of them being aware of the cause of the encounter between the two old chaps.
“See the kind of a scrape your foolish infatuation for the woman from Boston has led you into,” said Dick, in the ear of the professor. “Brace up! The passengers are laughing at you.”
Brad had assisted Major Fitts to rise. The little man was pale, and his eyes glared. He stood on his toes before Zenas, at whom he shook his fist, panting:
“Suh, this is not the end of this affair, suh! Give me your address in Constantinople, suh, that I may have a friend wait on yo’. This outrage shall be avenged in blood, suh!”
Dick was between them. He turned to the major.
“You have both made yourselves ridiculous,” he said. “It shall go no further. If you are not ashamed, I am ashamed for you.”
“I demand satisfaction!” palpitated Fitts. “I am from Mississippi, and no man can give me an insult and escape without meeting me in a duel.”
“The gentleman is quite right,” said the soft voice of Aziz Achmet, as the Turk stepped forward. “Under the circumstances the affair must be settled in a manner that will satisfy his wounded honor. If he needs a friend, I shall take pleasure in representing him.”
“Thank yo’, suh,” said the major. “I accept your generous offer, suh, and appreciate it.”
“Wants a duel, does he?” cried Zenas. “Well, he can’t frighten me that way! I’ll go him!”
“And I shall take great pleasure, suh, in shooting yo’ through the heart,” declared Fitts. “Yo’ will make the eleventh to my credit, suh.”
The mooring being completed, a great gang of men swarmed on board and took the steamer by storm. They were a struggling, snarling, shouting pack of Greeks, Armenians, Turks, Jews, and Italians, who literally fell on the bewildered passengers, as if seeking to rend them limb from limb. They raged, and shouted, and pushed, and in this confusion Dick and Brad managed to hustle the professor away, Fitts and Aziz Achmet being lost in the throng.
“Come now,” said Dick, “let’s get on shore in a hurry and see if we can’t keep clear of Major Mowbry Fitts, unless you are anxious to get yourself carved up or shot full of lead. He means business, and he really wants to fight you in a duel. You were in a nasty scrape, professor.”
“But my honor – ” began Zenas.
“Was satisfied when you floored him handsomely before all the passengers. Let it go at that.”
They found their baggage, and then Dick selected, amid the howling mass of human sharks, a fellow with a dirty red fez and a huge hooked nose.
“Do you speak English?” he asked.
“I