“No, no, mate,” said the biggest and strongest of the party; “it’s like hitting a man as is down. Come on.”
There was another struggle, but the brute was half thrust to the ladder, and directly after the trap was closed again, and the bolt shot.
“Well, I never felt so much like fighting before—leastwise not since I thrashed old Mike behind the barrel stack in the yard,” said Jem, resuming his coat, which he had thrown off.
“Did you fight Mike in the yard one day?” said Don wonderingly. “Why, Jem, I remember; that’s when you had such a dreadful black eye.”
“That’s right, my lad.”
“And pretended you fell down the ladder out of floor number six.”
“That’s right again, Mas’ Don,” said Jem, grinning.
“Then that was a lie?”
“Well, I don’t know ’bout it’s being a lie, my lad. P’r’aps you might call it a kind of a sort of a fib.”
“Fib? It was an untruth.”