Will lifted the iron tool in his hand with an impulse to strike his assailant. With another impulse he threw it from him, and used his sinewy limbs with a vigor which Mr. Brown had not dreamed of his possessing.
In a moment he had torn loose from his grasp, and by an alert trip had stretched his foe on his back on the floor.
“That’s the way I pile up my shingles!” cried Will exultingly. “Come to time, old hoss. I’ve chawed up better men than you.”
The language of the street, which he had partly laid aside, came back to Will in his excitement.
The furious salesman sprung to his feet and rushed at the boy with clinched fists. Two other men, who had been engaged with them on the third floor of the building, hurried up.
“Hold there, Bob!” cried one of these. “Don’t try that on a boy.”
“Let him alone,” said Will, as he deftly parried his blows. “He’s my meat. I wasn’t brung up on free fights to back down from a counter-hopper.”
But the man who had spoken pushed between and separated them, just as Will planted his fist with a stinging blow on Brown’s left cheek.
“Come, come, Bob!” said the peacemaker, “that’s no way to settle disputes with a boy. If the fellow has been impudent report him to Mr. Leonard, but never try your fists on a boy.”
Mr. Brown did report, and Will was sent for to Mr. Leonard’s office. Our hero proved a very poor hand at giving evidence in his own favor, but the men who had separated them described the whole occurrence.