no gentle manner, amid the jeers and laughter of the onlookers.

A beggar-man sat over against Eric's stage and grinned every time a pate
was cracked. He was an uncouth fellow, ragged and dirty and unshaven.
Eric caught sight of his leering face at one of his boasts--for there
was a lull in the game, because no man else wanted to come within reach
of Eric's blows. Eric, I say, noticed the beggar-man grinning at him
rather impudently, and turned toward him sharply.

"How now, you dirty villain!" quoth he, "mend your manners to your
betters, or, by our Lady, I'll dust your rags for you."

The beggar-man still grinned. "I am always ready to mend my manners to
my betters," said he, "but I am afraid you cannot teach me any better
than you can dust my jacket."

"Come up! Come up!" roared the other, flourishing his staff.

"That will I," said the beggar, getting up slowly and with difficulty.
"It will pleasure me hugely to take a braggart down a notch, an some
good man will lend me a stout quarter-staff."

At this a score of idlers reached him their staves--being ready enough
to see another man have his head cracked, even if they wished to save
their own--and he took the stoutest and heaviest of all. He made a sorry
enough figure as he climbed awkwardly upon the stage, but when he had
gained it, he towered full half a head above the other, for all his
awkwardness. Nathless, he held his stick so clumsily that the crowd
laughed in great glee.