But Piper took no notice. He suddenly lost all control over his temper.
"What the devil do you mean by coming blustering here?" he shouted. "Get out of my rooms this minute or I'll throw you out of the window. Yes, you'd better keep him back, you putty-faced swab"—this to Dizzy—"if he comes near me I'll put some marks on him that he won't lose in a hurry."
Lucius shook off Dizzy's encircling grasp.
"Will you stop printing lies about me and my father?" he said.
"I won't stop anything," rejoined Piper.
"Then will you fight?"
"Fight! By G—, yes. Take off your coat and try."
Howden and Stubbs both tried to stop them, but they might as well have tried to stop the tide rising. They were shaken off impatiently. Piper pushed the table and sofa aside, and in less than three minutes after Lucius had entered the room they were at it hammer and tongs.
There was not much science displayed. The room was too small, for one thing, and there was a good deal of damage done to furniture and breakables before it was all over. If Lucius had kept cool he might have made up in some measure for the great disparity in weight between them, for he knew just a little more of the game than Piper; but both of them were blind with rage, and it was attack on both sides, with very little defence, as long as it lasted.
It did not last long. Lucius fought as long as he could stand, but his blows got weaker and weaker, while Piper got in again and again with as much force as at first. At last he knocked Lucius clean through the glass doors of a cupboard which held his stock of crockery, and he fell heavily on to the floor, and lay there insensible, with the blood pouring from his head. Piper had not had enough even to cool his passion. "Get a towel and water from the bedroom," he said to Dizzy, who was kneeling by the side of his friend. "And take him out of this as soon as you can. I'm not going to stay in the same room with him." And he put on his coat and went out of the room.