"I sha'n't deny it, except about the business and the keeping cool. It's
any gentleman's business to interfere between a bully and a weakling
that he's abusing; and his blood must be water that does not boil while
he 'watches the operation' as you say, and goes in."

"To get well pommelled for his pains, and do no good to any one, himself
included. Let the weakling alone. A fellow that can't save himself is
not worth saving. If he can't swim nor walk, let him drop under or go to
the wall; that's my theory."

"Anglo-Saxon theory--and practice."

"Good theory, excellent practice,--in the main. What special phase of it
has been disturbing your equanimity?"

"You know the Franklins?"

"Of course: Aunt Mina's son--what's his name?--is a sort of _protégé_
of yours, I believe: what of him?"

"He is cleanly?"

"A nice question. Doubtless."

"Respectable?"

"What are you driving at?"

"Intelligent?"