"_Stop!_" gasped Anthony. "Whatever--whatever advice David needs I shall give him myself!"
Johnson Boller sighed and shrugged his shoulders, as if casting aside a responsibility he had a.s.sumed only because of a strong sense of duty. It was a little disappointing, because he had figured fully on rousing David--who must be a white-livered, spiritless little whelp, by the way--and having David rush to the defense of his mysterious lady. He had counted fully on David"s voice rising and then upon raising his own, in spectacular anger, so that a real noisy rumpus would develop in Anthony"s flat and send David"s stock a little farther down.
Instead, he had only roused Anthony; and Anthony certainly was a curious cuss, when one came to think of it! He was standing over there now, almost dead white, not trembling but looking as if he would like to tremble with rage.
And for what?
Because, ostensibly, his oldest friend had tried to advise the boy he had s.n.a.t.c.hed from a prize-fight. Johnson Boller shook his head. That opportunity business had been queer, but still it had been quite like Anthony in his eccentric moments--but this continuation of the queerness was bad! Before sixty, Anthony Fry would have settled down in some nice, comfortable sanitarium.
These things, however, were not the moment"s chief concern. It behooved Johnson Boller to try the second section of his hasty little plan, if David were to be ousted from the flat. Hence, he allowed his benevolent, genial grin to return; he flashed it upon Anthony and then upon the boy.
"As you please," said he, "although I don"t know how much good he"ll get out of the kind of advice you"re able to give him. However--that"s your lookout. Going to turn him into a man, eh?"
"Yes," Anthony said thickly.
Johnson Boller yawned, by way of demonstrating unconcern.
"Well, kid, it"s pretty soft for you, but since Mr. Fry"s determined on the job I"ll be around for the first month to offer whatever a.s.sistance may be within my power," said he. "Good meals--early hours--regular habits--all that sort of thing. And then, of course, a proper amount of athletic work to keep you fit."
"Yes," David agreed.
"Don"t be so h.e.l.lish surly about it," smiled Mr. Boller. "How are you, David--pretty athletic?"
"Athletic enough," David submitted.
"That means, I suppose, that you never raise a hand unless somebody pays you to do it. That"ll never do, boy. Regular, scientific training means everything to a man who wants to keep his health. Look at me! Ten years ago I weighed fifty pounds more than I do now--sick half the time and disgusted with life the other half. I got over it and to-day I feel like a two-year-old. What did it?"
David was looking at Anthony.
"Exercise did it!" stated Johnson Boller. "Stand up here?"
"What for?" David asked quickly.
"I"m going to teach the first principles of bounding health to you."
"If David needs any training, it can be arranged for later," Anthony put in hastily. "You see, Johnson, although----"
"Anthony," his friend interrupted firmly, "you"ll have to pardon me, but there are some things about which you know no more than an unborn kitten and one of them is physical training. I, on the other hand, have paid out about five thousand dollars to different specialists, and what I don"t know about keeping fit hasn"t been discovered yet. You do your share for the kid and I"ll do mine, and later on he"ll thank me more than he does you, Stand up, David."
"But----"
"Stand up and I"ll show you the elementary ideas of boxing," smiled Johnson Boller. "Come! Don"t be a mollycoddle!"
He waited, fists clenched loosely, smiling artlessly--although it was a bitter, cowardly thing that was in his heart.
Johnson Boller, be it admitted, intended to beat up David Prentiss; with the youngster"s good as his shallow pretext, he meant to bruise David"s young anatomy--and when this bruising was over to contrive another occasion and bruise it further--and after that to discover additional excuses and continue the bruising--until David Prentiss should flee the flat in sheer terror.
Hence, he smiled again and said:
"Come, kid! Come! Stand up or I"ll soak you right there!"
"Johnson!" Anthony said sharply.
"Like that!" said Johnson Boller, jabbing suddenly before the protest could take form.
And now Anthony cried aloud, for the boy had toppled over backward--and almost immediately Anthony"s teeth shut with a click. Because young David, eyes flashing, had bounced up again and was on his feet. One of his small fists, tight shut, had whisked out and met Johnson Boller"s countenance with a loud crack.
And Mr. Boller, expelling his breath with an amazed hiss, had lost his balance and was sitting on the floor!
CHAPTER VII
The b.u.t.terfly
One bad feature of having pa.s.sed one"s earlier days in the remote fastnesses of New England, in the era before the automobile and the telephone came to complicate life, is that one"s ideas of womanhood are likely to be definite and rooted.
Part of Anthony"s boyhood had been spent in a Ma.s.sachusetts hamlet nine miles from the nearest railroad, and at forty-five he had not fully recovered from some of the effects.
Even after decades of New York, Anthony"s notion of woman embodied a prim creature, rather given to talking of her sorrows, able to faint prettily on occasion, and, unless born to the coa.r.s.er form life, a little fatigued after dusting the parlor.
She was a creature, lovely and delicate, who played croquet as the extreme of exercise and never even watched more violent sports. She did not golf; she did not swim or shoot. She was, in a word, one hundred per cent. feminine--and about the most scandalous thing that could be suggested about her was that she savored, even one per cent., of the masculine.
So, while another type of citizen, possessed of all the facts, might have thrown up his hands in glee and laughed merrily at the sight of Johnson Boller sitting there on the floor, Anthony Fry merely stood frozen.
Minute by minute, he was understanding more fully just what manner of individual his insistence had inducted into his chaste home. She was a female in s.e.x only! She was no timid little thing, swooning and weeping at her terrible predicament; she was the sort that dons trousers and goes to prize-fights--but what was infinitely worse, if one judged by that resounding whack, she was herself a prize-fighter!
Anthony, you see, was a mild enthusiast about the fighting game; when he saw a genuine short-arm jab he recognized it instantly.
And going further--for he could not help doing that--what was to be the end of the mess? Last night, could his addled head but have permitted it, she would have gone away gladly as a boy. Now that the truth was out, she was making no effort to escape; far worse, just at this minute, she seemed bent on continuing the fistic battle, for she stood and fairly glared down at Johnson Boller.
Ten seconds had pa.s.sed since the resounding thump which proclaimed that heavy gentleman"s meeting with the floor, and still he had not risen.
Five of them he spent in staring blankly up at David; three he spent in gathering a scowl; the final two found his plump countenance turning to an angry red--and Johnson Boller was struggling to his feet, breathing hard.
"Say, kid----" he began gustily and threateningly.
Anthony Fry came to life and, with a bound, was between them.
"Let this thing stop right here, Johnson!" he said ringingly. "No more of it--do you understand? No more!"
"No more, your eye!" panted Johnson Boller. "Get out of the way before I knock you out!"
"Johnson, I refuse to permit you----" Anthony cried, and with both lean hands pushed back on Mr. Boller"s heaving chest.
"Look here, Anthony," said Johnson Boller, with plainly forced calm; "when a dirty little guttersnipe like that hits me a foul blow, something happens!"
"There wasn"t anything foul about that blow," David said calmly. "That was a nice clean jab, and nothing like the one you gave me without warning and while I was sitting down."