If you think you're going to cheek us just as you please here, you're mistaken, I tell you.

What do you mean by it ?" "By what ?" inquired Riddell, mildly, but quite composedly.
Silk's only reply was a passionate blow in the captain's face, which sent him staggering to the other side of the room.
It was a critical moment.

Riddell was no coward, nor was he one of those sickly individuals who, not satisfied to be struck on one cheek only, invite a repetition of the assault on the other side.

Physically weak and nervous as he was, he had sufficient British instinct to move him to stand up for himself.
And yet as he stood there a moment irresolute, it flashed across him that whatever the cost he must not enter upon a fight with Silk.
Of course he would be called a coward, and nothing he could say could prove he wasn't.

He was no match for Silk, and consequently his refusal to defend himself would be called fear.
"And yet," thought he, "if I fight, my chance in Welch's is gone, even if I were able to beat him.