“Oliver,” said Netherby, and his eyes shone, “this is, I think, positively the first occasion on which we have flung a genuine Plantagenet down the office-stairs. It is indeed an emotional moment.... I am thrilled.”
He made a grab at the throat of Ponsonby Wattles Ffolliott, who evaded it with an upward fling of the elbow as he scrambled in a ladylike way to his patent-leather feet, and put himself into an affected attitude of defence, his silk hat in one hand and his cane in the other.
“Wh—what are you—do—ing?” he asked plaintively.
Netherby Gomme laughed, eyeing him as might a hungry dog a bone.
“Ay, Noll; take careful aim,” said he, as the exquisite began to back towards the door. “What a destiny, to bark the shins of the royal house of Anjou!”
Noll could be seen at the head of the stairway, beyond the open door, weighing the broom to get the balance and the grip, and swinging it with careful aim at the place where he calculated would come the shins of the exquisite Ponsonby.
Netherby Gomme pounced upon the retreating body of Ponsonby Wattles Ffolliott, and this time he got his fingers inside the exquisite’s collar.
“Go—away!” gasped Ponsonby Wattles Ffolliott.
There was a sharp struggle as Gomme, gripping him by the throat, forced him backwards to the open doorway, nearly jerking the complaining head off the narrow shoulders, until the room swam round dazedly in the revolving addled wits of the miserable man.
“I say,” he gasped—his plaintive voice in pained remonstrance as they swung round the doorpost—“this is—horribly—sudden!” He groaned.