Page:Exploits of Brigadier Gerard.djvu/199

Rh like gamins in the gutter. You strike me on the head. I kick you on the knee. It is child's play. But if you will give me a sword, and take another one, I will show you how we fight over the water."

They both stared at me in their solid, English way.

"Well, I'm glad you're not dead, mounseer," said the elder one at last. "There wasn't much sign of life in you when the Bustler and me carried you down. That head of yours ain't thick enough to stop the crook of the hardest hitter in Bristol."

"He's a game cove, too, and he came for me like a bantam," said the other, still rubbing his knee. "I got my old left-right in, and he went over as if he had been pole-axed. It wasn't my fault, mounseer. I told you you'd get pepper if you went on."

"Well, it's something to say all your life, that you've been handled by the finest light-weight in England," said the older man, looking at me with an expression of congratulation upon his face. "You've had him at his best, too—in the pink of condition, and trained by Jim Hunter."

"I am used to hard knocks," said I, unbuttoning my tunic, and showing my two musket wounds.