The first guffaw had hardly sounded out upon the raw February air when Mr Evans smote the nearest humorist on his nose, and Mr Deadwood knocked the principal guffawer's head against the wall that was supporting his idle form. The other Hooligans objecting to this species of rebuke, a spirited free fight was soon in progress. But, after Covent Garden porters, Mr Deadwood found the weedy louts of Mount Street comparatively mild customers to tackle, and he laid about him with such energy that the group of Hooligans soon decamped with many oaths and much gnashing of such teeth as Jim's deputy had left in their gums.
In brief, Mr Deadwood, who had been a scrapper from his birth, and who had only been knocked out in fair fight once in his life--his opponent on that occasion being James Mortimer--established what is called a "funk" in Mount Street, for, after his primary bout with the Hooligans, the mere sight of his great shoulders and bull-dog jaw caused such law-breaking vagabonds as he might meet in the course of his rounds to slink off rapidly down dark alleys and tortuous byways in order to avoid him.
"The fact is," said Mr Deadwood one day, "Jim was much too gentle with these chaps. He didn't hurt 'em enough. By George! when I think how he was served, I feel inclined to go for every pub-propper-up I meet."
And indeed, Mr Deadwood's countenance wore such a pugilistic expression whenever he walked abroad--which was a good many times daily--that the local Hooligans began to decamp to less perilous quarters, and Mount Street in time came to be quite a respectable thoroughfare for those parts.
Occasionally Messrs Evans and Deadwood, having finished their day's work, would go to see Jim. The little Scottish nurse took care that they did not talk very much, and so the partners found their visits to No. 9 hardly what one would call lively excursions, though it is true they took a certain pleasure in calling there, for Mr Evans quickly came to the conclusion that the trained nurse was "a nice little thing," while Mr Deadwood, after talking to Dora, would fall into a strangely sentimental and melancholy mood. A few pints of bitter ale, however, served to dispel his gloom in the long run, and then he would hie forth and search for Hooligans, and the latter had a bad time if he happened to find them.
One evening, when the partners called at No. 9, they were told that they couldn't see Jim, as Dr Trefusis and Sir Savile Smart were with him. Mr Evans therefore challenged Miss Bird to a game of draughts, and Mr Deadwood favoured Dora and Frank with a lurid account of the various battles he had fought during his hospital career. It was not an improving discourse, and as a consequence of it Frank came home the next day with a black eye, the result of having engaged a much larger boy than himself in fistic combat.
The outcome of the specialists' conversation with Messrs Evans and Deadwood, after a rigorous examination of Jim's injuries, was that Mr Deadwood called on the bearded man when the latter was discussing tea and crumpets on the following afternoon.
"Oh, how do you do?" said the bearded man rather stiffly, as he rose from the table.
He had observed the arrival of the partners in Mount Street with some misgivings, for he recognised them as members of the Matt's band that laid waste his surgery. He did not go out of his way to renew his acquaintance with them, and trusted they would not take the initiative in that respect. However, in view of the ferocious character his patients had given Mr Deadwood, he thought it would be as well to be polite to him.
"Don't let me disturb you," said Mr Deadwood; "I have only dropped in to tell you, in the plainest way the mind of man is capable of conceiving, that you are an ass!"