“I did—ah—take supper last night, it is true,” he said. “But if I am a little pale to-day, that is not the cause. Things have occurred to annoy me intensely.”
“You should worry!” advised Steve. “Catch!”
The heavy medicine-ball struck Bailey in the chest before he could bring up his hands and sent him staggering back.
“Damn it, Dingle,” he gasped. “Kindly give me warning before you do that sort of thing.”
Steve was delighted. It amused his simple, honest soul to catch Bailey napping, and the incident gave him a text on which to hang a lecture. And, next to fighting, he loved best the sound of his own voice.
“Warning? Nix!” he said. “Ain’t it just what I been telling you every day for weeks? You gotta be ready always. You seen me holding the pellet. You should oughter have been saying to yourself: ‘I gotta keep an eye on that gink, so’s he don’t soak me one with that thing when I ain’t looking.’ Then you would have caught it and whizzed it back at me, and maybe, if I hadn’t been ready for it, you might have knocked the breeze out of me.”
“I should have derived no pleasure——”
“Why, say, suppose a plug-ugly sasshays up to you on the street to take a crack at your pearl stick-pin, do you reckon he’s going to drop you a postal card first? You gotta be ready for him. See what I mean?”
“Let us spar,” said Bailey austerely. He had begun to despair of ever making Steve show him that deference and respect which he considered due to the son of the house. The more frigid he was, the more genial and friendly did Steve become. The thing seemed hopeless.
It was a pleasing sight to see Bailey spar. He brought to the task the measured dignity which characterized all his actions. A left jab from him had all the majesty of a formal declaration of war. If he was a trifle slow in his movements for a pastime which demands a certain agility from its devotees he at least got plenty of exercise and did himself a great deal of good.