Bk! Aurora reeled as the fist met his jaw, and was followed by a swift one under the ear. For a moment astonishment seemed to hold him as he bleared at the slight figure; then he seemed about to burst with wrath; then he became a cold sportsman. The wife screamed for aid.
"Aoutside—come on!" He shoved Kids' Man before him into the walk, which, torpid a moment ago, now flashed with life and movement. Quickly the auditorium was filled with a moist, unlovely crowd of sloppy rags and towzled heads. While Kids' Man ministered to his nose, Arfer hitched his trousers, fingered his shirt-sleeves, and talked in staccato to his seconds, about a dozen in number. The crowd grunted and grinned. It seemed evident that Kids' Man was about to get it in the neck. One or two went to his side as he quietly turned back his sleeves, not for purposes of encouragement, but merely in order to preserve the correct niceties of the scrap.
A light tap on the body from either party, and then more things happened. "Go it, Arfer, flatten 'im! Cosh 'im! Rip 'im back, Arfer. Give 'im naughty-naughty, Arfer!"
But, as the crowd scraped and shuffled this way and that, they gave a panicky clearing to a spry retreat by Kids' Man. He was done for; Arfer was chasing him. They capered and chi-iked. Then, with a smart turn, he landed beautifully on the point, and sent the pursuing Arfer flat to the ground. The crowd murmured and oathfully exhorted Arfer to fink what he was doin' of. Flatten the Kids' Man—that was his job. They met again, and this time the Society received one on the mouth and another on the nose. He sat heavily down, and his seconds flashed wet handkerchiefs. The crowd cheered. "'Ad enough?"
But with a sudden spurt he came up again. His right landed on Arfer's nose, a natty upper-cut followed it. He got in another with his right, and pressed his man. The lady screamed, and disregarding the ethics of the ring, splurged in and seized the Society's coat-tails. But the crowd begged her to desist. Then the child, who, with the toughness of her class, had found her legs again, flitted fearfully about the fringe of the crowd.
"Wade in, mister! 'It the old woman—fetch 'er a swipe across the snitch!"
Now Kids' Man began to take an interest in the affair. Dodging a swinging blow of his lumbering opponent, he got in a half-arm jab. They closed, and embraced each other, and swayed, and the crowd chanted "Dear Old Pals." For a moment they strained; then Kids' Man lifted his enemy bodily held him, and with a peculiar twist dropped him. He lay still....
A murmur of wonder swelled quickly to a broad roar. The crowd surged in, squirming and hustling. For a moment it seemed that Kids' Man would get torn. It was just a hair's-breadth question between lynching and triumphal chairing. The sporting spirit prevailed, and: "Raaay! Good on yeh, mate! Well done th' S'ciety!" The lads swung in and gathered admiringly around the victor, who tenderly caressed a damaged beetroot of a face, while half a dozen helpers impeded each other's efforts to render first aid to the prostrate Arfer.
"Where's the blankey twicer? Lemme git 'old of 'im. Lemme git 'old of 'im!" implored the lady. But she was no longer popular, and they hustled her aside, so that in impotent rage she smote her prostrate husband with her foot for failing to uphold her honour before a measly little Kids' Man what she could have torn in two wiv one hand.
"Well, 'e's gotter nerve, ain't 'e?"