“I'll be yelled bridegroom at for all of you,” says Freckles. “What's it to you?”
“You won't be yelled bridegroom at about my mother,” saws the show kid.
“Who's being yelled bridegroom at about your mother?” says Freckles. “I'm being yelled at about Little Eva.”
“Well, then,” says this kid, “Little Eva is my mother, and you got to stop being yelled at about her.”
“Well, then,” says Freckles, “you just stop me being yelled at if you think you're big enough.”
“I could lick two your size,” says the show kid. “But I won't fight here. I won't fight in front of this crowd. If I was to fight here, your crowd might jump into me, too, and I would maybe have to use brass knucks, and if I was to use brass knucks, I would likely kill someone and be arrested for it. I'll fight in private like a duel, as gentlemen ought to.”
“Well, then,” says Freckles, “if any one was to use brass knucks on me, I would have to use brass knucks on them, and I won't fight any one that uses brass knucks in private.”
“Well, then,” says the show kid, “my brass knucks is in my trunk in the tent, and you don't dast to follow me and fight with bare fists.”
“My brass knucks is at home,” says Freckles, which was the first I knew he ever had any, “and I do dast.” So each one searched the other for brass knucks, and they went off together, me following. The fight was to be under the bridge over the crick down by the school-house on the edge of the woods. But when they got down there, the strip of sand by the side of the crick was in shadow. So they went on top of the bridge, to fight in the moonlight. But the moonlight was so bright they were afraid they would be seen by some farmer coming into town and maybe told on and arrested. So they sat down on the edge of the bridge with their feet hanging over and talked about where they had better fight to be private, as gentlemen should. And they got to talking of other things. And pretty soon they began to kind of like each other, and Freckles says:
“What's your name?”