"Enough!" quoth I, buttoning my coat. "Now let Olympus shake, the
caverns of ocean roar, the round earth tremble! If you have fists,
prepare to use them now--come on, pestiferous peasant, most
contumacious clod, and 'damned be he that first cries Hold--enough'!"
"Well, drown'd me!" exclaimed the ostler, staring. "Drown'd me if I
ever 'eard sich 'orrid talk in all my days, an' I've groomed for a
earl--ah, an' a markis afore now!"
Having said which, he clenched his fists, squared his shoulders and
launched himself at me like a charging bull. But profiting by Jessamy
Todd's many lessons and painful instruction, I danced nimbly aside,
tapped him with my left, spun round to meet his second rush, checked
him with a flush hit, swung my right beneath his chin and next moment
saw him sitting upon the cobblestones, legs wide-straddled, gaping
about him with a vacant air.
"'Oly 'eavens!" he murmured, glancing from the cloudless sky to me and
back again. "An' sich a whipper-snapper--'oly 'eavens!"
"A--weevily worm?" I enquired.
"Sir, I takes it back!" he answered, tenderly feeling his chin. "There
ain't a weevil breathin', no, nor yet a worm as could ha' knocked me
off my pins so neat an' true! I takes back weevil an' likewise worm,
sir."
"Good!" said I, and tossed him a shilling.
"What's this 'ere for?" he enquired.
"The exercise you have afforded me; it has done me good, chased the
dusty cobwebs from my brain, stimulated more healthy thought.
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