Page:George Gibbs--Love of Monsieur.djvu/166

 eye at Jacquard and Mornay, and then a wide smile broke the sluggish surface of the skin into numberless wrinkles.

“If ye’ll have it that way,” he grinned, “ye’ll be stuck like a sheep. But ’twill save me trouble. So fight away, my bully, an’ be dammed to ye!”

Immediately a ring was formed, into which the combatants were speedily pushed. Gratz laughed in his shrillest choked falsetto, while he threw off his coat and leered at the Frenchman. The huge bulk of the man was the more apparent when his coat had been removed, for in spite of his girth and fat his limbs were set most sturdily in his body, and though the muscles of his arms moved slothfully beneath the skin, it was easily to be seen that this was a most formidable antagonist. That he himself considered his task a rare sport, which would still further enhance his reputation among the crew, was easily to be perceived in the way he looked at Monsieur Mornay. And in this opinion he was not alone, for even Cornbury, who had pressed closely to the Frenchman’s side, wore a look which showed how deep was his con- 154