“That's called the 'come along.'—An' here's the strong arm. A boy can down a man with it. An' if you ever get into a scrap an' the other fellow gets your nose between his teeth—you don't want to lose your nose, do you? Well, this is what you do, quick as a flash.”
Involuntarily she closed her eyes as Billy's thumb-ends pressed into them. She could feel the fore-running ache of a dull and terrible hurt.
“If he don't let go, you just press real hard, an' out pop his eyes, an' he's blind as a bat for the rest of his life. Oh, he'll let go all right all right.”
He released her and lay back laughing.
“How d'ye feel?” he asked. “Those ain't boxin' tricks, but they're all in the game of a roughhouse.”
“I feel like revenge,” she said, trying to apply the “come along” to his arm.
When she exerted the pressure she cried out with pain, for she had succeeded only in hurting herself. Billy grinned at her futility. She dug her thumbs into his neck in imitation of the Japanese death touch, then gazed ruefully at the bent ends of her nails. She punched him smartly on the point of the chin, and again cried out, this time to the bruise of her knuckles.
“Well, this can't hurt me,” she gritted through her teeth, as she assailed his solar plexus with her doubled fists.
By this time he was in a roar of laughter. Under the sheaths of muscles that were as armor, the fatal nerve center remained impervious.
“Go on, do it some more,” he urged, when she had given up, breathing heavily. “It feels fine, like you was ticklin' me with a feather.”