Within that dark and narrow dell,
As if the fiends from heaven that fell
Had pealed the battle-cry of hell.”
Women and all join in the melee, and the cursing is terrible for its impiety and ferocity. At last the main combatants are parted, and one of them is carried upstairs almost insensible, with blood streaming from his chin, where his antagonist had rended a piece of flesh half off with his teeth. The victor swaggers about with the air of a conqueror, and his blood-covered fangs make even the boldest rough of them all tremble.
A girl entered after this, who took up a position near where I had squeezed myself into a corner to be out of the way of fists and boots, which were being thrown around loose a few minutes before. A glance sufficed to show that if she was vicious vice had not yet had time to mark her as it had the other creatures in the room. She looked a little frightened.
“They are having a good time,” I remarked.
“Yes,” she said somewhat doubtfully, “but I wish they weren’t so rough.”
I found out that she was a servant girl who had been out with her “fellow,” and was unable to gain admission to her house. The knave or the fool had then taken her here. I ventured to suggest to her that this was no place for a respectable woman, and offered to go with her in search of a hotel, but as I found that she suspected my motives, I gave the matter up.
I found that a new piece of fun was being promoted by the humorous gentlemen of the house. They were carrying stories back and forth between two of the women, so as to