"'Sure, Mike,' says the blonde, and climbs down. That made Merritt mad and he talks real English without any poetic frills for a minute. He allowed that he could lick any Stone Breaker that ever came off the Bowery, and when he started to prove it there was a mix-up which made the breaking up of 'The Society upon the Stanislaus' look like a fist fight between two Frenchmen. The walls were covered with curiosities from all over the world, and pretty soon they were flying through the air. Merritt yanked down an Indian war club and started for the Stone Breaker and somebody swatted him over the head with a mummy. The Legless Wonder couldn't join in, but he contributed a two-headed calf which was preserved in a jar of alcohol, and the Leopard Boy grabbed a bunch of Zulu spears and prodded every one in reach. Even the blonde was something of a scrapper and she mixed in with a miscellaneous assortment of stuffed animals and preserved specimens, to say nothing of some choice language which she hadn't learned in Circassia. The place was pretty well wrecked by the time the police arrived and separated the fighters.
"'What's all this row about, anyway?' asks the sergeant after they had quieted things down.
"'Dat guy was tryin' to get nex' to me wife, de Circassian Beaut',' answers the Stone Breaker. 'He spouts bum poetry about her, an' I won't stand fer it, see? Leave me go an' I'll crack his nut as easy as I would a pavin' stone.' Merritt had lots of fight left in him and tried to break loose, but the Circassian's remarks wilted him and I never knew him to use poetry again.
"'Aw, wot's de use, Mike?' says she. 'Youse can't crack a ting dat ain't hard, an' his sky-piece is made of mush.'"