The lips of the youth curled with scorn as he surveyed the bruiser.
“So you are a brute as well as a drinking bummer!” he exclaimed. “It’s a wonder to me how a man like you can hold any kind of a job.”
“Ya-a-a-ah!” snarled the now thoroughly angered ruffian, showing his yellow, tobacco-stained teeth. “You get out of here, or I’ll give you some of the same!”
“No, you won’t! I have dealt with brutes like you before.”
This cool defiance of the stranger, scarcely more than a boy, with smooth face and dainty hands, was something the big, greasy wiper could not understand.
“If it wasn’t for spilin’ yer fine clothes, I’d use ye fer a wiper ter finish the job on this machine,” declared Mart. “I think you’re too clean, anyhow.”
Then he ejected into his hand the quid of tobacco that had been stowed in his cheek, and, with a flirt of the hand, sent it full at the white bosom of the shirt worn by the youth.
Spat! it struck and stuck there.
Smack!
With a leap the youth had planted his fist fairly between the eyes of the bully.