“‘Come outside,’ sez he, ‘an’ I’ll show you why.’
“‘I’m willin’,’ I sez; ‘but my stripes are none so ould that I can afford to lose thim. Tell me now, who do I go out wid?’ sez I.
“He was a quick man an’ a just, an’ saw fwhat I wud be afther. ‘Wid Mrs. Bragin’s husband,’ sez he. He might ha’ known by me askin’ that favor that I had done him no wrong.
“We wint to the back av the arsenal an’ I stripped to him, an’ for ten minutes ’twas all I cud do to prevent him killin’ himself against my fistes. He was mad as a dumb dog—just frothing wid rage; but he had no chanst wid me in reach, or learnin’, or anything else.
“‘Will ye hear reason?’ sez I, whin his first wind was run out.
“‘Not whoile I can see,’ sez he. Wid that I gave him both, one after the other, smash through the low gyard that he’d been taught whin he was a boy, an’ the eyebrow shut down on the cheek-bone like the wing av a sick crow.
“‘Will you hear reason now, ye brave man?’ sez I.
“‘Not whoile I can speak,’ sez he, staggerin’ up blind as a stump. I was loath to do ut, but I wint round an’ swung into the jaw side-on an’ shifted ut a half pace to the lef’.
“‘Will ye hear reason now?’ sez I; ‘I can’t keep my timper much longer, an ’tis like I will hurt you.’
“‘Not whoile I can stand,’ he mumbles out av one corner av his mouth. So I closed an’ threw him—blind, dumb, an’ sick, an’ jammed the jaw straight.