"Now, you blow to Uncle and I'll break this crutch!"
Strange, isn't it, how we often are reminded of funny things even in the midst of danger? Bill, a cripple and unable to move about with the agility needed to fend off a cowardly attack by this miserable piker, showed the stuff he was made of when he burst out laughing, for he was reminded by this threat of that old yarn about a softy's threatening to break the umbrella of his rival found in the vestibule of his girl's house, then going out and praying for rain!
Thad, astonished at Bill's sudden mirth, held the crutch mid-air, and demanded with a malignant leer:
"Huh! Laugh, will you?"
"Go ahead and break it, but it won't be a circumstance to what I'll do to you. I can imagine your uncle—"
"So? Listen, you pusillanimous, knock-kneed shrimp? I'm going to mash your jaw so you'll never wag it again! And right now, too, you—"
Possibly there was as much determination back of this as any evil intent, but it also was doomed to failure. There was a quick step from the deeper shadows and a figure loomed suddenly in front of Thad who, with uplifted crutch, was still glaring at Bill. Only two words were spoken, a "You, huh?" from the larger chap; then a quick tackle, a short straining scuffle, and Thad was thrown so violently sidewise and hurtled against the bench from which Bill had just risen, that it and Thad went over on the ground together. The bench and the lad seemed to lie there equally helpless. Gus picked up the crutch and handed it to his chum.
"Let's go. He won't be able to get up till we've gone."
But as they passed out from among the shadows there followed them a threat which seemed to be bursting with the hatred of a demon:
"Oh, I'll get even with you two little devils. I'll blow you to—"