Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/219

 "That's a near one, mister!" cried he. "But it don't lie fiat."

Nor did it. The ring had jammed obliquely on the cardboard box, a finger's breadth from the board.

"It would've done if you'd left it alone!" shouted Jan above the steam fiend's roar.

"That it wouldn't! It's a bit o' bad luck, that's wot it is; never knew it to 'appen afore, I didn't; but it don't lie straight, now do it?"

"It would've done," replied Jan through his teeth. "And the watch is mine, so let's have it."

Whether he said that more than once, or what the fur-capped foe replied, Jan never knew. The merry-go-round robbed him of half that passed between them, and all that was to follow blurred the rest as soon as it had taken place. One or two salient moments were to stand out in his mind like rocks. He was sprawling across the intervening table, he had seized the watch that he had fairly won, and the ruffian in the cap had seized his wrist. That horny grip remained like the memory of a handcuff. The thing developed into a semi-recumbent tug-of-war, in which Jan more than held his own. The watches in their boxes came sliding down the sloping board, the fur-cap followed them, and a head like a fluffy melon hung a-ripening as the blood rushed into it. Jan beheld swelling veins in a stupor of angry satisfaction, and without a thought of his own position until a rap on the back went through him like a stab.

It was only a country policeman in streaming leggings; but he had not arrived alone upon the scene; and Jan felt the flooded cobble-stones heaving under him, as he relinquished his prize at once, and recoiled from the gaze of countless eyes.

Yet the policeman for one was not looking at him. The