"But the preliminaries can be arranged in advance, Mr. Merriwell. My representative will call on any friend you may name, sah." It was plain enough to all that Marline intended to force a duel or compel Merriwell to back down squarely. "If I decline to name a friend--if I decline to meet you in a regular duel----" "I shall brand you as a pusillanimous cur, sah!" Frank's face paled a bit, but still his eyes met Marline's steadily. "You seem to forget you are not in the South," he calmly said. "If you were on your own soil, you might be justified in pushing this thing as you are, for that is the not entirely obsolete custom among Southern gentlemen. But you are in the North, where duelists are criminals who have not even the sympathy of the public in general. Under such circumstances, you have no right to try to force such an encounter with me." "You demanded satisfaction, sah, and I named the weapons. I know nothing of your Northern ideas, and I care less. I do know that a man of honor in your position would name a representative and have this affair settled properly." "You have raised a point of honor on which we cannot agree, that is all." "Then you refuse to meet me? You take water? Ha! ha! ha! I swear I did think you were a coward all along! A short time ago all Yale said you were a coward, but now, because you made two or three lucky plays in the football game, all Yale is praising you to the skies. Well, sah, I will show them the kind of a man you are! I will show them that you challenged me, and then dared not meet me. I will brand you as the coward you are, sah! It will give me great satisfaction, I assure you." "Look here, Marline," broke in Burn Putnam, "you are carrying this thing beyond the limit. Merriwell has explained to you his position and made it clear that such a meeting as you propose is utterly impossible." "That's right, that's right!" chorused the others. "Mr. Merriwell knew me at the beginning," said the boy from the South, unrelentingly. "He knew I did not take any stock in fist-fighting--that I made no pretensions of being what you call a scrapper. Yet he demanded satisfaction of me for what he chose to consider an insult. That gave me the chance to name the weapons, and I named them. It seems that he sought to take an unfair advantage of me, thinking to force me into a fist-fight, about which he knew I knew nothing, and, having the advantage of me thus, give me a drubbing. It was a brutal attempt to take advantage of me, but he was check-mated. Now, under the circumstances, I have a right to push this matter as far as possible, and I will do it! He'll meet me in a regular duel, or I will take great trouble to brand him as a craven." "You'll get yourself into a very bad scrape, Marline," said Thornton. "Sympathy will not be with you." "Bah! What do I care! I can stand alone! I am a Marline!" "Besides that," continued Tom, "there is another point to be considered."