Monteagle turned to look at the man, and the latter turning also, clapped his hands on his hips, and with a swaggering air, looked the former saucily in the face. Monteagle thought he had seen the fellow before; he was dressed much as an ordinary laborer, large in size, with big coarse features that glowed with the effect of frequent potations.
Monteagle was about to turn away from the man in disgust, when he said—‘I think yees will know me when yees sees me again.’
‘Why so?’
‘Bekase yees trying to look off the countenance of me, I believe.’
‘I shall look where I please, and as long as I please,’ returned Monteagle.
‘That’s unfortunit agin,’ said the Irishman, ‘for yees will see nothing but a jintleman, and that’s what yees not used to seeing inside of the looking-glass.’
‘What is the object of these insults, you scoundrel?’ cried Monteagle, still in the belief that he had fallen in with the fellow before, but where he could not recollect.
‘Oh—no object at all, at all. But if I is a scoundrel, there’s more than one on the Plaza jist, and he’s not beyond the raitch of my fist, nythur.’
This was rather too much for Monteagle’s patience, and accordingly he rushed upon the intruder and saluted him with a violent blow in the face. The Irishman staggered backwards a few feet and then recovering himself approached the youth in a boiling rage. As they met and exchanged blows, the people came crowding to the spot, apparently bent only upon seeing the fight, as no one attempted to interfere. Monteagle was a pupil of Frank Wheeler’s and the science he had acquired from the teachings of that accomplished gymnast enabled him to bother his bulky antagonist a good deal. This rendered the latter exceedingly angry, and a cry was raised by the by-standers, as they saw a Spanish knife in the hand of the Irishman, which he had dexterously drawn from some part of his dress, and with which he rushed upon the youth with the evident design of finishing him and the battle together. At that moment, and just as the youth had caught a glimpse of the steel flashing before his eyes, a powerful hand was laid upon the shoulder of the Irishman, and he was drawn violently backwards. Some of the crowd began to murmur, but the Irishman looked into the countenance of the intruder, and both he and Monteagle pronounced the word ‘Blodget!’
‘How now, sir. What are you doing with that knife?’ cried Blodget in a peremptory tone.