“Hey, you black feller, dis be der place py vere der Poy Inventors vork, I don’t dink?”

Old Jupe, the Chadwicks’ colored factotum, paused on his way from the village with a big basket and looked his questioner over from head to foot. It was an odd figure that he inspected. He found himself facing a blond-haired youth of about eighteen with apple-red cheeks and bright, twinkling blue eyes.

Perched on the top of the youth’s tow-colored head was a small derby rakishly tilted to one side. A green bob-tailed coat—it had probably once been black—was carefully buttoned over a striped blue and white vest. The turned up ends of his baggy trousers were so far from the tops of his low, yellow shoes that they showed about two inches of startling red socks.

“Who you done calling black feller?” demanded Jupe, with justifiable indignation. “Ah’m a genelman ob color ah am, and I wants that mistinctly undercunstumbled.”

“Vell, dond go py geddin’ a mads, Mister Gentelemans vot vos colored,” said the tow-headed youth in a conciliatory tone. “My name vos Heiny Bumpernick Dill.”

For answer Jupe threw back his woolly head and burst into a roar of laughter that showed two rows of white, gleaming teeth between his thick red lips.

“Ho! Ho! Ho!—Ha! Ha! Ha!” he exploded. “Oh! gollyupmtions! ef dat ain’t mostest funniest ting I eber heard.”

The tow-headed youth gazed at the negro’s mirth with an expression that was at first amazed and then grew rapidly indignant.

“Vos ist los midt you?” he demanded wrathfully.

“Loose? Der ain’t nutting loose wid me, am dere?” demanded Jupe, fingering his waist band and in turn looking surprised.

“I saidt idt ‘Vos ist los!’” yelled the German boy. “Vot is idt der madder midt you anyvay?”

“Oh, dat name! Golly to goodness, chile! Dat name suttinly got on mah risibles. Heiny Pump it quick—oh! ha! ha! ha!” and throwing back his head, old Jupe went off into another spasm of mirth.

“I saidt idt Bumpernick——”

“Was dat you say. Bumper——”

“Nodt. Bumper-Bumper. P-U-M-P-ER—Bumper!”

Jupe scratched his woolly thatch. This was getting too much for him.

“P-U-M-P-E-R spells Pumper, chile,” he said.

“Dots vot I saidt idt, aind’t it? Bumper—Bumbernick. Dot’s my name, aind’t idt?”

“Say, lookah hyah, Massa Bumper, is you all crazy or am I?” demanded Jupe.

“Vos dot you say? I am grazy?” bellowed Heiny Pumpernick. He dropped a little wickerwork satchel he carried and doubled up his fists.

“I been adtletic feller alretty yet,” he shouted. “You bed my life you no comes making der funs by me, py chiminy, black feller!”

“Was dat? Who yo’ all calls black fellers—you—you—yaller-headed Dutchman,” ejaculated Jupe, thoroughly angry in his turn.

Now there is nothing on earth better calculated to arouse a German’s ire than to call him a Dutchman, and the same is the case when a negro is addressed as a “black fellow” or a “nigger.” Both the German youth and old Jupe were now fighting mad.

“I calls idt to you, black fellers,” sputtered out young Dill, doubling up his plump fists. “I’m an adtletic feller, I pet you mein lifes. You calls me Mister Dill oder I pust you vun py der nose.”

“Ho! ho! ef you all do dat you be a dill in er pickle, ho! ho!”

“Who is dot vot you calls a bickle? By chiminy, nigger, look idt out midt yourself!”

Without more words the redoubtable Heiny Pumpernick Dill let fly with his fists at Jupe who, for his part, was ready enough to begin hostilities. Now it so happened that this Homeric battle took place on the banks of the large lake mentioned in other volumes of this series. It was a body of water used for experimenting with models of craft of various kinds and had been the scene of the testing out of the diving torpedo boat, as readers of the volume dealing with that invention will recollect.

The fist of the exasperated German youth, as it leaped out, landed on a spot on Jupe’s anatomy which, while it was not calculated to do him much injury, still gave him plenty to think about.

“Woof! Wha’ fo’ yo’ alls hit me in der stomick?” indignantly roared out Jupe. Without more ado he dropped the basket he had been burdened with and the lid burst open. Instantly the ground was covered with a score of lively hard-shell crabs, but in the heat of their anger neither of the combatants noticed this.

Jupe’s retaliation for the German youth’s blow was vigorous.

“Gollyumptions! Ah makes yo’ all call me a genelman ob color befo’ ah kicks yo’n off’n these hayar groun’s,” he cried indignantly.

The next minute it was Mr. Dill’s turn to cry “Oof!”

But he quickly recovered and then, closing in, the two pugilistic heroes engaged in a tussle which speedily brought them in a rolling, kicking, struggling heap to the ground. Over and over they rolled on the banks of the lake and their struggles speedily brought them among some of the escaped crabs. These lost no time in dealing with the combatants. One fastened itself into young Dill’s long yellow hair while another seized Jupe by the back of the neck. Two piercing yells went up simultaneously.

“Oh! Ouch! Help! De debbil am got hold ob me by de neck!” roared out Jupe.

“Leggo mein hairs, py chiminy!” screeched the German boy. “Himmel! Donner! Blitzen!”

Over and over they rolled, with the crabs holding fast with a tenacious grip. Their struggles quickly brought them to the bank of the lake. What with anger, and what with pain, they were past noticing anything and just as Jack and Tom, who had been attracted by the uproar, came running down the gravel walk to ascertain its cause, a loud splash and a despairing yell announced the fact that the two doughty heroes had plunged into an element calculated to cool their wrath.