Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/100

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A CHILD OF THE JAGO

with the bulge, and the other was for the moment unequal to the work of driving off the assailant. The two children wrangled and struggled downstairs, through the doorway and into the street; the hunchback, weak but infuriate, buffeting, biting and whimpering; Dicky infuriate too, but alert for a chance to break away and run. So they scrambled together across the street, Dicky dragging away from the house at every step; and just at the corner of Luck Row, getting his fore-arm across the other's face, he back-heeled him, and the little hunchback fell heavily, and lay breathless and sobbing, while Dicky scampered through Luck Row and round the corner into Meakin Street.

Mr. Weech was busier now, for there were customers. But Dicky and his bulge he saw ere they were well over the threshold.

"Ah, yus, Dicky," he said, coming to

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