This remark the lawful owner justly considered somewhat personal, he being the son of a sailor, and having an eye that did not look as straight ahead as its companion eye did. And after he had been sainted with "Hi! Squint-eye, ho! Squint-eye, shiver your timbers, please" at short intervals for an entire Saturday morning, he became very angry, and the result of his anger was that he and four of his chummiest chums decided to go round to Tin Street and demand satisfaction.
They went, and were met by Ashburner, who was on his way home from the baker's with a pumpkin pie. As soon as he learned their errand, however, he, in the most obliging manner, placed the pie on the nearest stoop, and quickly mustering four of his chummiest chums, gave them "satisfaction"; that is, if a black eye for Jack, and sundry swollen lips and noses for his comrades, can be called by that name. As for the Ashburner party, with the exception of the pumpkin pie being squashed, that received no injuries whatever.
This doesn't seem exactly right, for Lubs certainly had cause for complaint in the first place. But Justice, they say, is blind, and I suppose that is the reason why she makes mistakes once in a while.
Jack went home breathing vengeance, and his chums, feeling called upon by the sacred voice of Friendship to breathe vengeance too, from that day forth there was war between the Woods, under Captain Lubs, and the Tins, under Captain Ashburner, first one side and then the other being victorious.
The two companies took their names from the streets in which they lived. These streets were on the outskirts of the city and only a block long, and ran in such a way that they, with a very short block named Short Street as a base, formed an isosceles triangle. At the point of this triangle was a drug-store having two front doors, one on each street.
The Shorts were part of them "Woods" and part of them "Tins," and their street faced the open square on the nearest side of which the new building already mentioned had been begun.
"Such a splendid place for a fight we'll never get again," said Lieutenant Rube Howell, to his captain. "The workmen have gone home, and nobody passes that way 'count of the heaps of stuff. I say, Lubs, let's have a last grand battle to end the old year with."
"You're right, Rube," said Lubs, and forthwith sent a challenge to the Tins' commander, and soon a lively skirmish for the possession of the fort—the half-dug-out cellar with a rough board fence around it—was going on.
The Woods won it, and then the fight began in earnest.
Captain Lubs, waving his sword—a long lath—above his head, and his lieutenant, backed by their men, mounted the fence, and derisively requested the besiegers to "come on!" The besiegers, led by Captain Ashburner, waving his sword—a broad strip of tin—above his head, and his lieutenant, Jimmy Mullally, did come on.