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Read Ebook: Dave Darrin at Vera Cruz: Fighting with the U.S. Navy in Mexico by Hancock H Irving Harrie Irving
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Ebook has 1737 lines and 49442 words, and 35 pages
READY FOR FIGHT OR FROLIC
"Do you care to go out this evening, Danny boy?" asked Dave Darrin, stepping into his chum's room.
"I'm too excited and too tired," confessed Ensign Dalzell. "The first thing I want is a hot bath, the second, pajamas, and the third, a long sleep."
"Too bad," sighed Dave. "I wanted an hour's stroll along Broadway."
"I feel a bit mean about quitting you," Dave murmured.
"And I feel a whole lot meaner not to go out with you," Dan promptly assured his chum. "So let's compromise; you go out and I'll stay in."
"That sounds like a very odd compromise," laughed Darrin. "On the whole, Dan, I believe I won't go out."
"If that's the way you feel," argued Dalzell, "then I'm going to change my mind and go out with you. I won't be the means of keeping you from your stroll."
"But you really don't want to go out," Dave objected.
"Friendship doesn't enter in, here," Dave interposed. "Danny boy, you stay here in the hotel and have your bath, I'll go out and pay my very slight respects to Broadway. Doubtless, by the time you're in pajamas, I'll be back, and with all my longing for wandering satisfied."
"Not at all, old chap! So long! Back in a little while."
Through the bathroom that connected their two rooms at the Allsordia Hotel, Dave Darrin stepped into his own apartment.
Having donned coat and top-coat, Darrin picked up his new derby hat and stepped to his room door. In another half minute he was going down on the elevator. Then he stepped into the street.
Dave Darrin was young, healthy, happy, reasonably good-looking. His top-coat and gray suit were well tailored. Yet, save for his erect, military carriage, there was nothing to distinguish him from the thousands of average well-dressed young men who thronged Broadway after dark on this evening in late March.
For perhaps fifteen blocks he strolled uptown. All that he saw on that gaily lighted main thoroughfare of New York was interesting. It was the same old evening crowd, on pleasure bent.
Then, crossing over to the east side of Broadway, Dave sauntered slowly back.
Through the occasionally opened doors of the restaurants came the sounds of music and laughter, but Dave felt no desire to enter.
He was several blocks on his homeward way, and was passing the corner of a side street quieter than the others, when he heard a woman's stifled cry of alarm.
Halting, bringing his heels together with a click, and throwing his shoulders back, Darrin stopped on the corner and looked down the street.
Five or six doors away, close to a building, stood a young woman of not more than twenty-two. Though she was strikingly pretty, Dave did not note that fact in the first glance. He saw, however, that she was well dressed in the latest spring garments, and that her pose was one of retreat from the man who stood before her.
That the man had the external appearance of the gentleman was the first fact Darrin observed.
Then he heard the young woman's indignant utterance:
"You coward!"
"That is a taunt not often thrown at me," the young man laughed, carelessly.
"Only a coward would attempt to win a woman's love by threats," replied the girl, more calmly, though bitterness rang in her tone. "As for you, I wish to assure you that I am quite through with you!"
"You coward!" spoke the girl, scornfully again.
"If your brother suffers, your pride will be in the dust," insisted the annoyer, "and, remember, I, alone, can save your brother from disgrace."
"Going to leave me, are you?" leered her tormentor. He stepped forward, holding out his hand, as though to seize the young woman's wrist, but she alertly eluded him.
"If you try again to touch me, or if you attempt to follow me," warned the young woman, "I shall appeal for assistance."
So absorbed were the disputants in their quarrel that neither had noticed Darrin, standing on the corner.
The tormentor's face flushed, then went white, "Make your appeal," he dared, "and see what happens!"
Again he attempted to take the girl by the wrist.
"Can I be of service, madam?" inquired Darrin, as he strode toward them.
Like a flash, the annoyer wheeled upon Darrin, his eyes flashing dangerously.
The tormentor moved a step nearer to the young woman, whose face had turned very pale.
Dave slipped quietly between them.
"As this young woman does not wish to talk with you," Darrin suggested, "you may address all your remarks to me."
While the two young men stood eyeing each other Darrin noted that the young woman's annoyer was somewhat taller than himself, broader of shoulder and deeper of chest. He had the same confidence of athletic poise that Dave himself displayed. In a resort to force, it looked as though the stranger would have the better of it.
Yet this stranger seemed suddenly deprived of much of his assurance. Plainly, there was some good reason why he did not wish to fight on this side street so close to Broadway.
"Madam," inquired Darrin, half turning, "may I have the pleasure of escorting you to your friends?"
At that moment a fareless taxicab turned the corner of Broadway and came slowly down the street.
"Hold on, chauffeur!" cried Darrin, in a voice of command. Then, as the cab stopped at the curb, Dave turned his back upon the tormentor for a moment, while he assisted the young woman into the taxicab.
"Do you feel satisfied to go without escort," asked Darrin, "or may I offer my services in seeing you safely to your home?"
"I shall be all right now," replied the young woman, the troubled look in her lustrous brown eyes vanishing as she favored her unknown defender with a smile. "If the driver will stop, two blocks from here, I will direct him where to take me."
"Step aside, boy!" ordered the unknown man, as he tried to brush Dave away and enter the cab.
It was no time for gentle measures. Ensign Darrin's right fist landed heavily on the face of the stranger, sending him prone to the sidewalk.
At a wave of Dave's hand the chauffeur started away. Scenting trouble, the chauffeur drove as fast as he could down the side street, making the round of the block, then heading into Broadway and going uptown, for the young woman had called out her destination.
As for the stranger whom Dave had knocked down, the fellow was on his feet like a flash. Ignoring Darrin, he tried to dash down the side street after the taxicab.
"Step back!" ordered Dave, catching hold of the fellow, and swinging him around. "You're not going to follow."
"I must have the number of that taxicab," cried the stranger, desperately.
"Too late," smiled Dave, as he saw the taxicab turn the next corner. "You won't learn the number. I happened to see it, though," he added incautiously.
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