"Sinners in Number Seventy-three!" cried Big Smith, and his voice penetrated into every den and corner of that vast rabbit warren, "you will not come out to hear me, but I'll make ye hear me yet, if I scraich till the Day of Judgment. Sinners in Number Seventy-three, ye are a desperate bad lot. I hae kenned ye this ten year—but——"
Clash!—came a pail of dirty water out of the stair window where the Knuckle Dusters, yet completely unregenerate, were concealed.
Big Smith was taking breath for his next overwhelming sentence, but he never got it delivered. For as soon as he realised that the insult was meant for him, Big Smith pushed his hat firmly down on the back of his head and started up the stair. He had his oak staff in his hand, a stick of fibre and responsibility, as indeed it had need to be.
The first he got his hands upon was Tam Luke.
Tam was standing at the back of a door, squeezing himself against the wall as flat as a skate.
"Come oot!" said Big Smith, in commanding tones.
"It wasna me!" said Tam Luke, who very earnestly wished himself elsewhere.
"Come oot!" said Big Smith, missionary.
Tam Luke came—not wholly by his own will, but because the hand of Big Smith seemed to gather up most of his garments at once. And he grasped them hard too. Tam Luke's toes barely touched the ground.