"He knows how t' spell it," remarked Barber, facetiously.
"Heaven strengthen the arm o' ye!" cried the Father.
Head ducked, hands out like a boxer, One-Eye again began an advance toward Big Tom, doing a sort of a skating step—a glide. And as he came on, Barber threw back his head and guffawed. "Oh, haw! haw! haw! haw! haw!" he shouted. "Y' don't mean y're goin' t' finish me! Oh, haw! haw! haw!"
"A haw-haw's aig in a hee-hee's nest!" returned One-Eye, and spat on his hands. "Finish y' is what I aim t' do! I been waitin' and waitin'!" (The cowboy was saying more in these few minutes, almost, than he had during all of his former visits to the flat!) "I've waited since the first time I clapped my eye on y'! I'm the mule that waited seven years! I been storin' up my kick! And now it's growed to a humdinger! Y've whaled this here boy, and tied up this here girl! His face is cut, and his back is black, and raw, and bleedin'! Wal, it's Tom Barber's turn t' git a hidin'!—the worst hidin' a polecat ever did git! So! Where'll y' take it? In this house, 'r outside?" The question was asked with a final, emphatic stomp, an up-throw of the disheveled head, a spreading outward of both gartered arms.
"That's the way t' talk!" vowed the Father. "Shure, a coward needs his own punishment handed t' him!—Take yer whippin', Tom Barber, and take it like a man! For it's a whippin' that's justly comin' t' ye this mornin', as all the neighborhood'll agree!"
"Where?" One-Eye insisted, for the longshoreman had not replied to the question. "Let's don't lose no time! I'm a-goin' t' hand y' a con-vul-sion! That's it! A con-vul-sion! I'm goin' t' pull the last, livin' kink outen y'! Two shakes o' a lamb's tail, and I'll show y' a civy-lized massacree! Yip-yip-yip-yee-ow!"
"Goin' t' wipe me out, eh? Goin' t' put me t' bed?" Barber laid down his pipe.
"Goin' t' ship y' t' the Hospital!" Side gliding to the stove, the cowboy delivered up his quid.
"Hee! hee!" giggled the longshoreman. "Guess I'll jus' knock that other eye out!"
One-Eye was waltzing back. "Don't count y'r chickens 'fore they're hatched!" he warned. "'Cause here y're gittin' a man o' y'r own size, y' great, big, overbearin' lummox!"