Every man save the little Cuban made an electric movement. Patsy roared a black oath and thrust himself forward until he towered almost directly above the other man. His fists were doubled into knots of bone and hard flesh. The Cuban had raised a steady finger.
"If you touch me wis your hand, I will keel you."
The two well-dressed men had come swiftly, uttering protesting cries. They suddenly intervened in this second of time in which Patsy had sprung forward and the Cuban had uttered his threat. The four men were now a tossing, arguing; violent group, one well-dressed man lecturing the Cuban, and the other holding off Patsy, who was now wild with rage, loudly repeating the Cuban's threat, and maneuvering and struggling to get at him for revenge's sake.
The bartender, feverishly scouring away with his towel, and at times pacing to and fro with nervous and excited tread, shouted out--
"Say, for heaven's sake, don't fight in here. If yeh wanta fight, go out in the street and fight all yeh please. But don't fight in here."
Patsy knew one only thing, and this he kept repeating:
"Well, he wants t' scrap! I didn't begin dis! He wants t' scrap."
The well-dressed man confronting him continually replied--
"Oh, well, now, look here, he's only a lad. He don't know what he's doing. He's crazy mad. You wouldn't slug a kid like that."
Patsy and his aroused companions, who cursed and growled, were persistent with their argument. "Well, he wants t' scrap!" The whole affair was as plain as daylight when one saw this great fact. The interference and intolerable discussion brought the three of them forward, battleful and fierce.
"What's eatin' you, anyhow?" they demanded. "Dis ain't your business, is it? What business you got shootin' off your face?"
The other peacemaker was trying to restrain the little Cuban, who had grown shrill and violent.
"If he touch me wis his hand I will keel him. We must fight like gentlemen or else I keel him when he touch me wis his hand."
The man who was fending off Patsy comprehended these sentences that were screamed behind his back, and he explained to Patsy.
"But he wants to fight you with swords. With swords, you know."
The Cuban, dodging around the peacemakers, yelled in Patsy's face--