"I'm not drunk!" cried Michael, and hit, smash upon Mike's breast. And then out of the crowd leapt upon him—Cockney.
"Is it a fight yer want?" asked Cockney.
Neither was so drunk that he could not hit, feint, parry; the others circled.
"Now, now," said Mike. "See! Pull them apart!" But it was too late; they had grappled.
Now people make laws, and they become the vogue; you are judged by them, willy-nilly. If you cannot box, as boxing is taught in the gymnasium, and find yourself set upon by a boxer, you will be ostracised in some walks of life if you deliver him a kick in the shins; or, should he fall, if you knuckle his wind so that he may lie there long enough for you to beat your retreat from one skilled in the "science," you will be ostracised for that; you must box him according to the rules. But in this walk of life, upon the poop of the S.S. Glory, it is a case of top dog anyhow. Mr. Smithers, on the docks, newly arrived to see the ship clear, put teeth together, looking up, and made the hissing sound through his teeth that a stoic makes when operated on without an anaesthetic. For as the two men reeled to the taffrail, and the onlookers there fell asunder to give them a full field, they were displayed to the one or two persons who looked up from the wharf front, displayed as on a high set stage, Michael with Cockney's head under his left arm, an attitude, by the way, permitted in some gymnasia, taboo in others—for there are "sets" there too. Michael was swinging a right in upon the top of Cockney's head, when suddenly he saw the taffrail and thought it would serve as well, shifted his hold, and with both hands drove Cockney's head, as if it were a turnip, against the middle rail. It was this which caused the first hiss and spasm ashore. It would have finished most men. You could have laid a finger in the indentation that the rail made in Cockney's skull; but as he took the blow, refusing to be stunned, like a tough, wild beast, he screamed, and thrust a thumb upward into Michael's eye, even while Mike, Scholar, Pierre and the Inquisitive One were hauling them asunder. Back went Cockney, flopped on the deck, and held head in hands. There! They were apart. And suddenly, over the taffrail and down the curve of the ship to the tow rope that went to the tug astern, Michael made a kind of scramble and scuttle.
There! They were apart.
"Grab that man!" shouted Smithers from the dock. "He'll fall on the screws!"
Michael, upon all fours, had caught the tow rope and now swung himself down, shouting: "I've been shanghaied! I won't sail on the Glory!" He spun slightly left and right, clutching the rope, so that those who craned under the bottom rail to try to grab him, and those who looked up from the wharf, had glimpse, time about, of his ghastly face, and the eyeball protruding like the yolk of an egg. One man was now on his belly under the taffrail, stretching to grasp Michael, but he slithered slightly forward on the curve to the hull.