“Ignace Pulinski!”
The utterance was freighted with a degree of stern disapproval that almost caused the Pole to relax his grip on his adversary. It proceeded from Roger Barlow. He had come up the stairs just in time to hear the cry of “Give it to him, Poley!” Darting the length of the floor, he had pushed his way into the midst of the group to behold his usually placid Brother transformed into an enraged savage.
“Let him up,” ordered Roger. “Let him up, I say!” The intense forcefulness of his tones cut the air like a whip-lash. Long years of obedience to a superior will now had its effect upon Ignace. His face distorted with anger, nevertheless his strong hands fell away from Bixton’s prostrate form. Very sullenly he lumbered to his feet and stepped back a pace, his fists still doubled.
Freed from that relentless pressure, Bixton was up in a flash. His pale blue eyes gleaming with malignant fury, he launched a vicious upper-cut at Ignace, only to find his punishing right arm arrested in mid-air by two determined hands. Anticipating some such move on Bixton’s part, Roger had blocked it with lightning-like swiftness.
“Help me hold him back, you fellows,” he snapped, as Bixton struggled to strike him with his left arm.
Three pairs of sturdy arms now coming to Roger’s aid, Bixton was fairly dragged over to his cot and bundled upon it, thrashing about wildly under the pinioning hands. Ignace had not assisted in this operation. He stood stock-still at the point where he had let Bixton up, his face a study. Roger’s interference had brought him to his senses. He was beginning to regret his own display of temper. He had done just exactly what he had been warned against doing. Weighted down by a sense of his own shortcomings, he shuffled over to his cot and began to pick up his scattered papers.
“Hold on to him just a minute more, please. I’ve something to say to him.” With this energetic direction, Roger’s own hands relaxed their grasp on Bixton. “Now, listen to me,” he continued, fixing a steely gaze on the man. “If you know when you’re well off, you’ll behave yourself when the fellows let go of you. I don’t know what all this is about, and I don’t care. Just by pure luck you’ve escaped the sergeant. If he’d come in here as I did and seen you two fighting, you’d both be in the guard-house by now. He’s likely to come in any minute, so watch yourself. That’s all. Break away, boys.”
Released, Bixton shot up from his cot like a jack-in-the-box. “Trying to screen your pet, are you?” he sputtered. “Well, you can’t. He’s going to get his, all right, the minute the sarge hits the squad-room. I’ll teach that pasty-faced hulk a thing or two!”
For all his bluster, he made no attempt to attack either Roger or his companions.
“Better hold your tongue,” advised Roger dryly, looking the bully squarely in the eye. “It takes two to make a fight, you know. I wouldn’t bank too much on the sergeant’s seeing it differently. Come on, fellows. Leave him to think it over.”