Page:Henry rideout--The siamese cat.djvu/217

 nasal cry of his friend from Salem rang indignant—"Foul, a foul!" He heard a slow voice counting:"Five, sax, seven.…"

"No!" he gasped. "No foul! No, no! A fair blow."

He regained his feet somehow, dodged unsteadily but swiftly from the attack, slipped away, skirted the room full circle. A lucky instinct made him duck below a ferocious swing; and the whiff and wind of it, passing over his crown, seemed miraculously to clear the air. He bobbed up a fighting man again, cool, amused, anxious to win, and to keep a painful smile on cracked and puffing lips.

The downfall had done him good. Presently, in the exchange of feinting and checked blows, his fist landed true on the jaw. "'Andy work, mate," grunted his opponent, cheerfully. And spurred by that contempt, but without hurry, he landed three times more on body and head.