"Now, then," said Algernon, squaring up to his cousin in good style,
"now's the time for that unwholesome old boy underneath to commence
groaning."

"Step as light as you can," replied Edward, meeting him with the pretty
motion of the gloves.

"I'll step as light as a French dancing-master. Let's go to Paris and
learn the savate, Ned. It must be a new sensation to stand on one leg
and knock a fellow's hat off with the other."

"Stick to your fists."

"Hang it! I wish your fists wouldn't stick to me so."

"You talk too much."

"Gad, I don't get puffy half so soon as you."

"I want country air."

"You said you were going out, old Ned."

"I changed my mind."

Saying which, Edward shut his teeth, and talked for two or three hot
minutes wholly with his fists. The room shook under Algernon's boundings
to right and left till a blow sent him back on the breakfast-table,
shattered a cup on the floor, and bespattered his close flannel shirt
with a funereal coffee-tinge.