“YOU ... ARE THE INVENTOR OF A PECULIAR, IRRESISTIBLE BLOW”
Flushed, excited, and disheveled, you went your way; and flushed, excited, and disheveled, Ted went his way. Throughout your route, you and your babbling escorts, with many a “Gee!” and “Darn!” discoursed upon what you had done, and what Ted had not done, and what would have happened had the fight lasted only a minute longer.
Loudly you wrangled with them as to which got the worst of it, quite blind to the fact, which now you are free to acknowledge, that the one who got the worst of it was your mother, for she had to mend your clothes.
She was always getting the worst of it. She was the unlucky non-combatant.
The duello produced the best of feeling between Ted and you. Fights were for mutual benefit. Swelling dignity and biceps so demanded expression that they could not forever be gratified by merely playfully poking chums in the ribs.
Therefore it is plain why, when a friend mischievously reported to you, “Say, Speck says he can lick you,” it was all that was required. Like to a strutting cockerel who hears a distant crow, you bristled in answer.
“He can’t, either. I can lick him with one hand tied behind my back.”
Fast flew the news to Speck, and Speck promptly resented the slur, as he should. The boys of the neighborhood were pleased.
Now you, and likewise Speck, are the objects of much flattering attention. You let your following feel your muscle, and they let you feel theirs, and you are firmly convinced that yours is the hardest. Also, you are convinced that you have a great knack at fisticuffs, and are the inventor of a peculiar, irresistible blow which you deliver, the knuckle of the middle finger carefully protruded, under your warding left arm. More or less secretly you have demonstrated it while “fooling” with your companions.