"Doggy Bates tells me that you told him you could whack me with one
hand behind you."

I replied that I had told Doggy Bates nothing of the sort.

"That's all right," said he. "Then you take it back?"

He had the air of one sure of his logic, but his under lip--not to
mention his ears--protruded in a way that struck me as offensive, and
I replied--

"That depends."

"My name's Stokes," said he, still in the same reasonable tone.
"And you'll have to take coward's blow."

"Oh, indeed!" said I.

"It's the rule," said he, and gave it me with a light, back-handed
smack across the bridge of the nose; whereupon I hit him on the point
of the chin, and, unconsciously imitating Captain Coffin's method of
charging a crowd, lowered my head and butted him violently in the
stomach.

I make no doubt that my brain was tired and giddy with the day's
experiences, but to this moment I cannot understand why we two
suddenly found ourselves the focus of interest in a crowd which had
wasted none on Captain Coffin.

But so it was. In less time than it takes to write, a ring