“Do you want some, too, you big stiff?” he inquired.
The man spluttered and tried to break away, striking at Billy as he did so; but a sudden punch, such a punch as Billy Byrne had once handed the surprised Harlem Hurricane, removed from the mind of the tramp the last vestige of any thought he might have harbored to do the newcomer bodily injury, and with it removed all else from the man's mind, temporarily.
As the fellow slumped, unconscious, to the ground, the camper rose to his feet.
“Some wallop you have concealed in your sleeve, my friend,” he said; “place it there!” and he extended a slender, shapely hand.
Billy took it and shook it.
“It don't get under the ribs like those verses of yours, though, bo,” he returned.
“It seems to have insinuated itself beneath this guy's thick skull,” replied the poetical one, “and it's a cinch my verses, nor any other would ever get there.”
The tramp who had plumbed the depths of the creek's foot of water and two feet of soft mud was crawling ashore.
“Whadda YOU want now?” inquired Billy Byrne. “A piece o' soap?”
“I'll get youse yet,” spluttered the moist one through his watery whiskers.