"Look here!" said he, frowning, with his legs a-straddle. "Doggy Bates tells me that you told him you could whack me with one hand behind you."
I replied that I had told Doggy Bates nothing of the sort.
"That's all right," said he. "Then you take it back?"
He had the air of one sure of his logic, but his under lip—not to mention his ears—protruded in a way that struck me as offensive, and I replied—
"That depends."
"My name's Stokes," said he, still in the same reasonable tone. "And you'll have to take coward's blow."
"Oh, indeed!" said I.
"It's the rule," said he, and gave it me with a light, back-handed smack across the bridge of the nose; whereupon I hit him on the point of the chin, and, unconsciously imitating Captain Coffin's method of charging a crowd, lowered my head and butted him violently in the stomach.
I make no doubt that my brain was tired and giddy with the day's experiences, but to this moment I cannot understand why we two suddenly found ourselves the focus of interest in a crowd which had wasted none on Captain Coffin.
But so it was. In less time than it takes to write, a ring surrounded us—a ring of men staring and offering bets. The lamp at the street-corner shone on their faces; and close under the light of it Master Stokes and I were hammering one another.