before a blow got home. `Hold on, you damned fools!' they said.
`Keep quiet till we get away from the house!' There was a little clear flat
down by the river and plenty of light there, so we decided
to go down there and have it out.

Now I never was a fighting man; I'd never learnt to use my hands.
I scarcely knew how to put them up. Jack often wanted to teach me,
but I wouldn't bother about it. He'd say, `You'll get into a fight some day,
Joe, or out of one, and shame me;' but I hadn't the patience to learn.
He'd wanted me to take lessons at the station after work,
but he used to get excited, and I didn't want Mary to see him
knocking me about. Before he was married Jack was always getting
into fights -- he generally tackled a better man and got a hiding;
but he didn't seem to care so long as he made a good show --
though he used to explain the thing away from a scientific point of view
for weeks after. To tell the truth, I had a horror of fighting;
I had a horror of being marked about the face; I think I'd sooner
stand off and fight a man with revolvers than fight him with fists;
and then I think I would say, last thing, `Don't shoot me in the face!'
Then again I hated the idea of hitting a man. It seemed brutal to me.
I was too sensitive and sentimental, and that was what the matter was.
Jack seemed very serious on it as we walked down to the river,
and he couldn't help hanging out blue lights.

`Why didn't you let me teach you to use your hands?' he said.
`The only chance now is that Romany can't fight after all.
If you'd waited a minute I'd have been at him.' We were a bit
behind the rest, and Jack started giving me points about lefts and rights,
and `half-arms', and that sort of thing. `He's left-handed,
and that's the worst of it,' said Jack. `You must only make as good a show