“I won’t,” says I.
“You will,” says he, “or I’ll try to lick you when I’m done with these.”
That was like him, too. He didn’t say he would lick me, but that he would try to lick me. It was that kind of a polite way he had that was natural. Dad says Catty was a gentleman by instinct. It wouldn’t have been friendly if he had said he would lick me, but there was a kind of a sort of courtesy about his doubting whether he could. Anyhow, he walked straight up to Banty and Skoodles.
“You’ve got a lickin’ comin’,” says he, “and I’m a-goin’ to deliver the goods. I’ve warned you. I won’t be called a tramp or a jail-bird and I’ll soak any feller that called them to me.”
“You dassent start any fight here,” says Banty, and he believed it, too. “Tramp!” he says as a sort of dare.
“I’m goin’ to give both of you a lickin’,” says Catty. “Either one at a time or both of you together. I calc’late you’re the kind that ’ll want to fight two to one.”
“We won’t fight here—not on Main Street.”
“You bet you will,” says Catty.
“Don’t you dast,” says Skoodles. “We’ll have you arrested.”
Catty didn’t wait for anything more. He took a step ahead and he slapped Banty with one hand and Skoodles with the other. “Now fight,” says he, and they fought. In a second the whole street looked like it was full of fists and feet and kids mauling each other. I expected Catty would get a thundering walloping—two to one—but I didn’t mix in. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to, or because I was afraid to, and I made up my mind that if they did thrash Catty I’d catch each of them alone and lamm him good. But Catty wanted to fight his own fight, so I stood back and watched.