“Shut your mouth, you hookem-snivey fox, or I’ll hammer your white teeth down your throat! Stand up to me, now this instant moment, an’ us’ll see who’s the best man. ’Tis time this here woman knowed, an’ I’ll show her the straw you’m made of, for all your size.”
He flung down his gun and his coat, then turned up his sleeves and waited.
“We can’t fight before a girl—impossible,” said Anthony.
“Doan’t she want us to? Ban’t she hungry to see us do it? Ban’t she a female, like the rest of ’em? Come on, or I’ll beat you like a dog.”
“What’s the good of making an exhibition of yourself, Richard? I was ‘runner-up’ in the amateur heavy-weights two years running. I can smother you, but I don’t want to.”
“Doan’t blow so loud afore you see what ’tis to fight a chap in the right,” cried Richard, with passion.
So we shift our standpoint at the beck of chance, and call virtue to our aid when accidentally enrolled under her banner. He stood where he had lied to his little brother and trampled Davey’s fish into the ground and laughed at the child’s rage.
“You’d better go,” said Maybridge to Jane. “I’m awfully sorry about this, but—”
He was cut short, for the other rushed in and struck him a heavy blow on the side of the face. Anthony shook his head and snorted.
“If you will have it, you shall,” he said; “but I’m sorry, because you’re right and I’m in the wrong—more or less.”