Mr. Pratt locked the door and "slipped," as he called it, the key into his pocket. "Mr. Pratt, I insist upon your unlocking that door." "Mr. Pownceby, I was raised out West, and I was raised fighting, and I learnt to smell a fight when it was coming, and there's as big a fight now coming as ever I yet smelt." "Why do you use this language, sir, to me?" "It's my ignorance, may be. But in those parts where I was raised, when one man played upon another man's wife the tricks you've played on mine, it generally ended up in fighting. You bet it's going to end in fighting now." Mr. Pownceby made a movement towards the bell. Mr. Pratt sprang in front of him. "You can ring the bell, sir, afterwards; but first you'll listen to me. They'll have to break the door down to get into this room, and that'll be a scandal; and while they're breaking it down I'll be whipping you. You'd better, take it fighting. I've got a shooter." Putting his hand to his pistol-pocket, Mr. Pratt flashed the barrel of a revolver in Mr. Pownceby's face. "But I know your English notions, and I don't want to use it in a little affair like this. Let's strip to the waist, and clear the furniture out of the middle of the room, and have a little prize-fight all to ourselves." "Do you take me for a madman, Mr. Pratt? If you don't immediately unlock the door I shall summon assistance, and if you use any violence towards me, I shall give you into the charge of the police." "Is that your line? That's mine!" Dropping the hand which held the revolver, Mr. Pratt delivered with his left. Delivered so neatly, in the centre of Mr. Pownceby's forehead, that that gentleman was hurled backwards on to the floor. "If you like you can take it lying down, and you can summon assistance while you are taking it; but you'll take it somehow--that you bet." Mr. Pownceby, lying on the floor, looked up at Mr. Pratt standing over him. "Let me get up." He got up. The blow had cut the skin, and the blood was trickling through. With his handkerchief he staunched the flow. "In America, Mr. Pratt, they may think the sort of thing that you propose heroic. In England they consider a row of any sort ridiculous." "Consider! It isn't what they consider I'm thinking of, it's how you're going to take it." Mr. Pownceby fixed his glance on Mr. Pratt's keen black eyes. He smiled. "Take it? I'll take it fighting, like the converter of Colonel Quagg!" "I thought you would. I smelt it coming on." As he spoke Mr. Pratt placed his revolver on the mantelshelf. Mr. Pownceby was still smiling. "Do you propose to settle it now?" "I do. I propose to settle it before you leave this room." "In that case don't you think we'd better pull the blind down, or people walking on the terrace will be able to see the fun? If we are going to make asses of ourselves, we may as well do it, as far as possible, in private." Mr. Pratt pulled the blind down. The sun was shining outside. The room was still quite light.