I thirsted for his blood.
I brought my father’s bulldog to take my part in a quarrel. It took my part—in fact, it took several parts of me.
I summoned re-enforcements in the shape of my little brother. Bill piled my little brother on top of me, and wanted more of the family to complete the structure.
Then I vowed that I would be avenged, and bought a sixpenny hand-book of boxing, and went in for a study of that literary masterpiece. It was illustrated with striking diagrams. Figure 1,—the position. Figure 2,—one for his nob. Figure 3,—the body blow. Figure 4,—the return. Figure 5,—the upper cut. Figure 6,—the cross-counter.
I devoured the instructions, and I practised the attitudes for weeks, till I mastered both so completely that I was a walking encyclopedia of P. R. theory, and I had only to be asked for Figure 1, or 3, or 4, or whatever I was desired, and I posed so statuesquely correct that I could have been photographed to illustrate “Fistiana.”
But I held my secret, and bided my time, and submitted to Bill’s insults with the glowing consciousness of approaching triumph, while I developed my newly acquired science in my bedroom on the pillows, and administered “one-two’s” in the ribs to the hair mattress, and “propped” the bolsters, and sparred at my shadow on the wall, and showered rib-benders and hot ’uns in the bread-basket on imaginary Bills till I felt like a conquering hero.
At last I decided that the hour of Fate had struck; the supreme moment had arrived for squelching Bill; and one day, when he had helped himself to my lunch, and grumbled at its scantity, I invited him to accompany me when school was over to a sequestered vale, where I might punch his head.
He came.
I gave my hand-book to my brother Joe, and told him to sing out the proper figures for the various stages of the battle.
I made all my preparations in the orthodox way. I threw my cap into the improvised ring, tied a handkerchief for a belt round my waist, and wanted to shake hands a la Sullivan and Kilrain, but Bill declined.