‘Yes, what is the muss?’ cried the new-comer, whom the reader will recognize as the hero of the fire who took the ladder on his shoulders—‘Hullo! here! knives out! daggers drawn! Down, you rascals!’
Charley then seized two of the most forward of the combatants in his Herculean grasp, and hurled them against the wall, while the rest, recognizing the famous engineer, fell back, breathing heavily and eyeing their adversaries with murderous spite.
Patrick and Jamie, who had thus far taken no part in the affray, felt themselves aggrieved by the presence of an official whom they had no particular reasons for admiring, and whose presence had more than once been a check upon their professional labors. They first began to grumble together in a low voice, and finding that they could do this with impunity, they felt emboldened to proceed still farther.
‘The boys has got to be very civil in these times,’ said Patrick.
‘Oh! it was nothing but a little spree like, they was having—no harm at all, at all, in a free country, just for a lark like,’ returned Jamie carelessly.
‘But the laws is very strict for all that,’ said Patrick, nodding graciously.
‘Oh, murder, yes,’ returned Jamie, ‘its English laws they are like more than like what it used to be, before their—’
‘You mane the Vigilance Committee, Jamie; oh! bad luck to ’em, they is no lawful powers any how. There’s niver been any good in the place since they began to meddle with the payple.’
Several of the company drew near the two Irishmen and seemed to be interested in their discourse, while Charley, in conversation with the keeper of the den, eyed them at a distance.
In the mean time, the two orators, believing they were at the head of a considerable party, got on their feet, and began to swagger about the hall and swing their fists in close proximity to such persons present as they supposed to be unfavorable to their views. Jamie was particularly violent until he happened to graze the shoulder of Charley who, shooting out a fist that would have startled an ox, struck the big Irishman under the ear and felled him to the floor.