Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/183

 hold and he wished very much to tell his brother what Mr. Ruggles had said about the editor.

John's was the most interesting room in the house. It had an old stone fireplace with an iron crane, and above the mantel hung a pair of Revolutionary sabers which John when he was a small boy had bought—immediately after Christmas, when he was in funds—from the blacksmith in City Island. John had spent several weeks of his boyhood in working upon these relics with emery powder and oil. Of late years Edward had occasionally taken them down and given them a cleaning.

When Edward entered the room with his armload of clothes, John had taken down one of the sabers and was making cuts and passes at the air.

"You've been cleaning these old boys?" he asked. "I'm obliged to you. They're the only things that I ever really wanted when I was a boy that I finally got. You could put up an awful scrap with this thing if you knew how."

"I guess," said Edward as he exchanged his dressing gown for an undershirt, "that you could put up an awful fight with it if you were mad and didn't know how."

"The best way to fight a man," said John, "is to hit him first and to hit him in the pit of the stomach. But you want to be sure that you put