His blow was not the “immortal passado” mentioned by Mercutio, but rather the “punto reverso,” for it landed him in the dust, while the enemy remained on high.
Just at this juncture mother Anderson put in her oar, literally as well as figuratively, for happening to have that instrument of navigation in her hand, she proceeded to belabor the prostrate Steve.
“Stop that!” screamed Nannie. “Oh, you bad, fiendish woman! Sick her, Brownie!”
And away went Brownie and attached himself firmly to Madam Anderson's train, and beginning a swift rotary movement, so bewildered the old lady that she lost both oar and enemy, and looked more like a pirouette dancer than a decorous upholder of the cause of individual freedom and public highways.
By this time Steve had regained his perpendicular, and tingling with mortification, started in and really did some inspired work. Taking the foe by the collar, he shook him as a cat would shake a rat.
“You little puppy! Get out of here!” he roared in a most unnatural voice.
Then with the oar (which mother Anderson had abandoned when she took to dancing) in one hand and the dangling enemy in the other, he proceeded down the slope, out upon the little pier, and after sousing the refractory William in the lake, dropped him into his boat.
“Now you follow him, and be off—both of you!” he said sternly to madam, who stood upon the pier, squawking like an old hen on the eve of decapitation.
She lost no time in obeying him, albeit she continued to work nature's bellows with great vigor as Steve threw in the oar he held and gave the boat an energetic thrust.
“Steve, you're a trump!” cried Nannie.