I was just in time to
see him take a flying kick at her, amid cries of "Shame!
"from the crowd, and then lurch forward again, with
the evident intention of having another, the mob still
expostulating vaguely.
If, Bertie, it had been old student days, I should
have sailed straight in, as you or any other fellow would
have done. My flesh crept with my loathing for the
brute. But I had also to think of what I was and where
I was, and what I had come there to do. However, there
are some things which a man cannot stand, so I took a
couple of steps forward, put my hand on the fellow's
shoulder, and said in as conciliatory and genial a voice
as I could muster: "Come, come, my lad! Pull yourself
together."
Instead of "pulling himself together," he very nearly
knocked me asunder. I was all abroad for an instant. He
had turned on me like a flash, and had struck me on the
throat just under the chin, my head being a little back
at the moment. It made me swallow once or twice, I can
tell you. Sudden as the blow was, I had countered, in
the automatic sort of way that a man who knows anything
of boxing does. It was only from the elbow, with no body
behind it, but it served to stave him off for the moment,
while I was making inquiries about my windpipe.
Then in he came with a rush; and the crowd swarming round
with shrieks of delight, we were pushed, almost locked in
each other's arms on to that big pedestal of which I have
spoken.
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