Then I sat on him pretty hard for his pretensions, and paid him out
for all the patronage he'd worked off on me, and called him a mug
straight, and walked round him, so to speak, and blowed, and told him
never to pretend to me again that he was a battler.

Then, when I thought I'd licked him into form, I cooled down and
soaped him up a bit; but I never thought that he had three climaxes
and a crisis in store for me.

He took it all pretty cool; he let me have my fling, and gave me time
to get breath; then he leaned languidly over on his right side, shoved
his left hand down into his left trouserpocket, and brought up a
boot-lace, a box of matches, and nine-and-six.

As soon as I got the focus of it I gasped:

"Where the deuce did you get that?"

"I had it all along," he said, "but I seen at the pub that you had
the show to chew a lug, so I thought we'd save it--nine-and-sixpences
ain't picked up every day."

Then he leaned over on his left, went down into the other pocket,
and came up with a piece of tobacco and half-a-sovereign.

My eyes bulged out.

"Where the blazes did you get that from?" I yelled.