six inches of Stuyvesant's nose, the young man had no difficulty whatever in hearing what he said, and yet it should not be considered strange that he failed to understand. In all fairness, it must be said that he was bewildered. Under the circumstances any one would have been bewildered. Being spoken to in that fashion by a man you've never seen before in your life is, to say the least, surprising. "I'll give you ten seconds to apologize."
"Ap—apologize? Confound you, what do you mean? You're drunk."
"I said ten seconds," growled Cornelius.
"And then what?" gulped Stuyvie.
"A swat on the nose," said Mr. McFaddan.
At no point in the course of this narrative has there been either proof or assertion that Smith-Parvis, Junior, possessed the back-bone of a caterpillar. It has been stated, however, that he was a young man of considerable bulk. We have assumed, correctly, that this rather impressive physique masked a craven spirit. As a matter of fact, he was such a prodigious coward that he practised all manner of "exercises "in order to develop something to inspire in his fellow-men the belief that he would be a pretty tough customer to tackle.
Something is to be said for his method. It has been successfully practised by man ever since the day that Solomon, in all his glory, arrayed himself so sumptuously that the whole world hailed him as the wisest man extant.
Stuyvie took great pride in revealing his well-developed arms; it was not an uncommon thing for him to
