"Yeou don't tell me!" gasped the Vermonter, his surprise seeming to increase. "Ain't it awful!"

"But the fellow needs a lesson!" rasped the man with the eye that persisted in looking in the wrong direction. "I think I'll hit him once or twice."

"My gracious!" fluttered Gallup. "Hev ye gotter hit him real hard? Don't yeou s'pose he might hit back?"

"Let him try it!" came fiercely from the giant.

"Be yeou goin' to hit where ye're lookin'?" asked the country youth.

"Cause ef yeou be, I'd advise that man with the wart on his nose to move."

At this the man who owned the wart dodged with a suddenness that provoked a t.i.tter of laughter from several witnesses.

Ephraim was adding to the comedy of the affair, and Frank bit his lips to keep from laughing outright, despite his annoyance over being thus detained.

The big man with the crooked eye flourished his fists in the air in a most belligerent fashion, and instantly Merriwell gazed at him sternly, saying:

"Be careful, sir! You are imperiling the lives of everyone near you, and you may strain yourself."

"That's right, by gum!" nodded Gallup, whimsically. "Yeou may warp one of them air arms, flingin' it araound so gol-darn permiscuous like."

"Here comes an officer!"

Somebody uttered the cry.

"It is high time!" exclaimed the little man, trying to soothe his agitated whiskers by pulling at them.

"It surely is," croaked the lank individual, his head bobbing with renewed excitement.

"Madam, the law will give you redress," bowed the gallant man, again taking off his silk hat and again clapping it on suddenly, as if a breath of cool air on his shining pate had warned him of the exposure he was making.

"Oh, why didn't the officer stay away a minute longer, so I might have thumped him!" regretfully grunted the fighting man with the misdirected eye.

The policeman came up and forced his way through the crowd, demanding:

"What does this mean? What is happening here?"

"A lady is in trouble," the bobbing man hastened to explain.

"In serious trouble," chirped the bewhiskered man.

"She has been insulted," declared the gallant man.

"By a masher," finished the man with the errant eye.

"Where is the lady?" asked the officer.

"There!"

All bowed politely toward the masked woman.

"Where is the masher?" was the next question.

"There!"

Their scornful fingers were leveled straight at Frank Merriwell.

CHAPTER XVII.

ARRESTED.

"Oh, sir!" exclaimed the woman, "I beg you to protect me from his insults!"

The officer was a gallant fellow. He touched his hat and bowed with extreme politeness. Then he frowned on Merry, and that frown was terrible to behold. He gripped Frank by the collar, gruffly saying:

"You'll have to come with me."

Merry knew it was useless to attempt to explain under such circ.u.mstances. Every one of the a.s.sembled crowd would be a witness against him.

"Very well," he said, quietly. "I am quite willing to do so. Please do not twist my necktie off."

"Don't worry about your necktie!" advised the policeman, giving it a still harder twist. "I know how to deal with chaps of your caliber."

Now of a sudden Ephraim Gallup began to grow angry. He did not fancy seeing his idol treated in such a manner, and his fists were clenched, while he glared at the officer as if contemplating hitting that worthy.

"It's a gol-dern shame!" he grated. "This jest makes my blood bile!"

"I don't wonder a bit," piped the long-necked man, misunderstanding the Vermonter; "but the officer will take care of him now. He'll get what he deserves."

"Oh, will he!" exploded Gallup. "Waal, ef I was yeou, I'd hire myself aout to some dime museum as the human bobber. Yeou teeter jest like a certun bird that I won't name."

"Wh--a--at?" squealed the individual addressed, in great excitement.

"This to me! Why, I'll----"

"I wish ter great goshfrey yeou would!" hissed Ephraim, glaring at him.

"I'd jest like to hev yeou try it! I'd give yeou a jolt that'd knock yeou clean inter the middle of next week!"

"Why, who is this fellow that seeks to create a disturbance?" bl.u.s.tered the little man, his fiery whiskers beginning to bristle and squirm again. "He should be sat upon."

The country youth turned on him.

"I wish yeou'd tackle the job, yeou condemned little red-whiskered runt;" he shot at the bl.u.s.terer with such suddenness that the little man staggered back and put up his hands, as if he had been struck. "Yeou are another meddler! I'd eat yeou, an' I'd never know I'd hed a bite!"

"This is very unfortunate, madam," purred the gallant man at the veiled woman's side. "I am extremely sorry that you have had such an unpleasant experience. Now, if that creature----"