Minute by minute, he was understanding more fully just what manner of individual his insistence had inducted into his chaste home. She was a female in sex only! She was no timid little thing, swooning and weeping at her terrible predicament; she was the sort that dons trousers and goes to prize-fights--but what was infinitely worse, if one judged by that resounding whack, she was herself a prize-fighter! Anthony, you see, was a mild enthusiast about the fighting game; when he saw a genuine short-arm jab he recognized it instantly. And going further--for he could not help doing that--what was to be the end of the mess? Last night, could his addled head but have permitted it, she would have gone away gladly as a boy. Now that the truth was out, she was making no effort to escape; far worse, just at this minute, she seemed bent on continuing the fistic battle, for she stood and fairly glared down at Johnson Boller. Ten seconds had passed since the resounding thump which proclaimed that heavy gentleman's meeting with the floor, and still he had not risen. Five of them he spent in staring blankly up at David; three he spent in gathering a scowl; the final two found his plump countenance turning to an angry red--and Johnson Boller was struggling to his feet, breathing hard. "Say, kid----" he began gustily and threateningly. Anthony Fry came to life and, with a bound, was between them. "Let this thing stop right here, Johnson!" he said ringingly. "No more of it--do you understand? No more!" "No more, your eye!" panted Johnson Boller. "Get out of the way before I knock you out!" "Johnson, I refuse to permit you----" Anthony cried, and with both lean hands pushed back on Mr. Boller's heaving chest. "Look here, Anthony," said Johnson Boller, with plainly forced calm; "when a dirty little guttersnipe like that hits me a foul blow, something happens!" "There wasn't anything foul about that blow," David said calmly. "That was a nice clean jab, and nothing like the one you gave me without warning and while I was sitting down." "That's enough, David!" Anthony said. "He started it," David submitted. Anthony pushed on. Johnson Boller was against the bureau now--had been there for some seconds, indeed--and his expression was changing. Young David, to be sure, had rendered him slightly ridiculous for a bit, but getting mad about it was not likely to help in eliminating David. "It's all right, Anthony," Mr. Boller said with a sudden grim smile. "Don't shove me through the wall. I won't hurt the kid." "You'll not lay hands on him?" "No." "That's a promise?" "Why, of course it is!" Johnson Boller said heartily.