drink cocktails and swear and give parties to gorillas. The papers say so.”
Then Haywood knew that it must be. He took off his coat, folded it neatly and laid it on the roadside grass, placed his hat upon it and began to unknot his blue silk tie.
“Hadn’t yer better ring fer yer maid, Arabella?” taunted “Smoky.” “Wot yer going to do—go to bed?”
“I’m going to give you a good trouncing,” said the hero. He did not hesitate, although the enemy was far beneath him socially. He remembered that his father once thrashed a cabman, and the papers gave it two columns, first page. And the Toadies’ Magazine had a special article on Upper Cuts by the Upper Classes, and ran new pictures of the Van Plushvelt country seat, at Fishampton.
“Wot’s trouncing?” asked “Smoky,” suspiciously. “I don’t want your old clothes. I’m no—oh, you mean to scrap! My, my! I won’t do a thing to mamma’s pet. Criminy! I’d hate to be a hand-laundered thing like you.”
“Smoky” waited with some awkwardness for his adversary to prepare for battle. His own decks were always clear for action. When he should spit upon the palm of his terrible right it was equivalent to “You may fire now, Gridley.”
The hated patrician advanced, with his shirt sleeves neatly rolled up. “Smoky” waited, in an attitude of ease, expecting the affair to be conducted according to
