handles from being broken off, these cups were made without
handles. They were so thick that you could drop them on the floor
and not damage the cups. When one man hit another on the head
with this fragile china, the skull cracked before the teacup did.
The "family reach" which we developed in helping ourselves to
food, was sometimes used in reaching across the table and felling
a man with a blow on the chin. Kipling has described this hale
and hearty type of strong man's home in Fulta Fisher's Boarding-
House where sailors rested from the sea.


"A play of shadows on the wall,

A knife thrust unawares

And Hans came down (as cattle fall),

Across the broken chairs."


But the boarders did not fight with knives at the Bucket of
Blood. Knifing is not an American game. We fought with fists,
coffee cups and pieces of furniture, after the furniture went to
pieces. We were not fighting to make the world safe for
democracy, although we were the most democratic fellows in the
world. We slept two to a bed, four to a room. Not always the same
four, for like soldiers on the firing line, some comrade was
missing after every battle.

These fights started in friendly banter. One fellow would begin