‘Lofty conduct!’ said Paul to himself, with a little rueful grin. ‘I’m in for it, and I must make the best of it.’
He made the best of it for one fast five minutes, and all on a sudden he found himself looking at the sky, his opponent and the little crowd clean vanished. He was dreamy and quiet, and had no opinions about anything, and no interest in anything. Somebody picked him up and set him on somebody else’s knee, where he was sponged and fanned. There was a faint suggestion in his mind to the effect that somebody, somewhere, had a shocking headache. Then he knew that one or two men were roughly helping him to dress. He himself mechanically aided this work, and by-and-by found himself watching a new encounter, aware by this time that the headache was his own. He handled nose, and upper-lip, and eye delicately, and came to the conclusion that he presented a picture to the gaze of man. Then, gradually pulling himself together, he watched the business of the day with tranquil interest.
Four had had it out with four, and then two with two; and now the survivors of the match were engaged for the final prize of honour. Each man had fought twice already, and they were both too tired to do much execution upon each other; but at last Paul’s late antagonist won, and the simple game was over. The man in the rabbit-skin waistcoat thanked Paul for having preserved the symmetry of the day.
‘Eight’s a shapely little handful,’ this authority said. ‘It’s the pick of the basket for a number, eight is. Sixteen’s on-widdy, and it knocks a hole in a long summer’s day. Four’s a flash in the pan; but eight’s a pretty little number.’ He added genially: ‘We’m all very much obliged to you, young man.’
‘Oh,’ said Paul, ‘I like to be neighbourly.’
The muscles of his face were stiffening, and his inclination to laugh cost him a twinge.
The man in the rabbit-skin waistcoat said his sentiment did him credit, and shook hands with him on the strength of it. The crowd went away as it had come, and left him where it found him. He was not going to walk home in broad daylight with such a visage as he carried. He paced about the trampled hollow to keep his blood in circulation, and in a little while the friendly darkness began to gather. Then he set out for home at leisure, choosing unlighted ways; and after a circuitous journey, climbed a gate and a garden wall or two, and landed at the office. There he made his toilet with the aid of a piece of yellow soap, a bucket of water, and a jack-towel, and then walked down the darkened garden to the house. He paced the paved yard on tiptoe, and peeping through the kitchen-window, saw his father seated alone at the fireside Armstrong looked up with his customary mild, abstracted gaze.
‘Why, Paul, lad!’ he cried. ‘Who’s handled ye like that?’
‘There’s no harm done, sir,’ said Paul ‘I’ve been putting a precept of Mr. Ralston’s into effect in a way he never dreamt of.’
‘Ye’ve been fighting,’ said his father, with a voice of reproof. ‘Unless ye’ve a vera guid reason for it, that’s a blackgyard way of settling differences.’