Judge Kingsley rushed out with a horsewhip and lashed us apart just as I was finishing Ben up.
“Young Sidney, you’re a cheeky, tough, brazen character,” said the judge. I did not answer him.
It is my nature to take a big lot from all women, considerable from some men, and devilish little from most men. I had nothing at all to say to Celene Kingsley’s father, even though I was rubbing half a dozen swelling welts where his whip had connected with the back of my neck.
“You come of a tough family,” stated the judge.
Right then my uncle Deck arrived at the party; he had been watching the thing from the tavern porch.
“What’s that you say about our family?” he asked the judge.
“I don’t care to stand here and quarrel with you, Decker Sidney.”
“When you horsewhip my dead brother’s boy in the main street you’ll come pretty nigh to having a quarrel with me, seeing that his own father can’t protect him.”
“I merely came out here and stopped a fight which was disgracing our village.”
“It’s a nice thing for one of the ‘forty thieves’ to talk about disgracing a village,” said my uncle.