Of course it was no match. The small boy was at the mercy of the big one. The latter was indeed taken aback for a moment at the fury of his young assailant, impotent as it was, but that was all. He might have defended himself with a single hand; he might have carried the boy under one arm out into the passage. But the evil spirit had been roused within him, and that spirit knew no mercy. He struck out and fought his little foeman as if he had been one of his own size and strength. For every wild, feeble blow Stephen aimed, Loman aimed a hard and straight blow back. If Stephen wavered, Loman followed in as he would in a professional boxing match, and when at last the small boy gave up, exhausted, bleeding, and scarcely able to stand, his foe administered a parting blow, which, if he had struck no other, would have stamped him as a coward for ever.
“Now!” exclaimed Loman, looking down on his victim, “will you do what you’re told now, eh?”
It was a critical moment for poor Stephen. After all, was the “strike” worth all this hardship? A single word would have saved him; whereas if he again defied his enemy, it was all up with him.
He did waver a moment; and lucky for him he did. For just then the door opened, and Simon entered. Stephen saw his chance. Slipping to the open door, he mustered up energy to cry as loud as he could, “No, I won’t;” and with that made good his escape into the passage, as done up as a small boy well could be without being quite floored.
A dozen eager friends were at hand to aid in stopping the bleeding of their hero’s nose, and to apply raw steak to his black eye. The story of his desperate encounter flew on the wings of fame all over the school, and the glory and pride of the youngsters reached its climax when, that afternoon, Stephen with his face all on one side, his eye a bright green and yellow, and his under lip about twice its ordinary thickness, took his accustomed place in the arithmetic class of the Fourth Junior.
“Why, Greenfield,” exclaimed Mr Rastle, when in due time the young hero’s turn came to stand up and answer a question, “what have you been doing to yourself?”
“Nothing, sir,” remarked Stephen, mildly.
“How did you come by that black eye?” asked the master.
“Fighting, sir,” said Stephen, rather pompously.
“Ah! what did you say forty-eight sixths was equal to?”