Page:Short Stories (1912).djvu/59

52 "Mein Gott, Bob, no fightin' here!"

"Oh, you go to hell, you bloody Dutchman."

"Look here, Jack, don't you go to insulting my father!" chirped up Charley, getting a bit ugly.

"I say he kin go ter Hell and you with him. Come out in the road and I'll belt Hell out of yer and every bloody Dutchman in the place."

"Yer can do it, too, Jack, can't yer?" yelled Bob, now gloriously drunk.

"My bloody colonial oath!"

"Well, you keep a civil tongue in yer head, Jack—that's all," and Charley turned away to go.

"Ah, yer bloody Dutch whelp—take that!" and Jack lunged viciousy at young Ahlers, hitting him heavily.

Now, Charley was one of those long-limbed, wiry, sinewy Colonials, used to working hard, seldom drinking and leading a decent sort of a life. Once roused, however, he was a terror, and now he was fairly roused.

The fight didn't last long, for Jack fell about all over the place while Charley pounded him.

O'Reagan, the constable, strolled down when he thought that the fight had gone as far as did good, and separated the men. He summoned Bob and Jack to appear in court the next day for creating a disturbance and using obscene language in a public place, and it cost Bob and Jack about three pounds in fines and costs.

But Bob found another thing yet a bitterer pill to swallow. Father Ahlers, having been summoned as a witness, appeared against him. When it was all over Bob made straight for the old German and shook his fist in his face.

"Never again—so help me—will I touch another bloody drop in your bloody house," he yelled. "By God. and this is what you call gratitude! And I—I—I've kept your bloody house open for years!"