Page:Bacheller--D'ri and I.djvu/215

D'RI AND I "Well, how do you find it?" said he, impatiently.

"I am satisfied," was my reply.

He helped me take off my blouse and waistcoat, and then I rolled my sleeves to the elbow. The hum of voices had grown louder. I could hear men offering to bet and others bantering for odds.

"We'll know soon," said a voice near me, "whether he could have killed Ronley in a fair fight."

I turned to look at those few in the arena. There were half a dozen of them now, surrounding my adversary, a man taller than the rest, with a heavy neck and brawny arms and shoulders. He had come out of the crowd unobserved by me. He also was stripped to the shirt, and had rolled up his sleeves, and was trying the steel. He had a red, bristling mustache and overhanging brows and a vulgar face—not that of a man who settles his quarrel with the sword. I judged a club or a dagger would have been better suited to his genius. But, among fighters, it is easy to be fooled by a face. In a moment the others had gone save