Page:Tom Brown's School Days (6th ed).djvu/71

 quite acknowledged down below, walks to each face of the stage and looks down, shaking the money, and chaffing as how he'll stake hat and money and another half-sovereign "agin any gamester as hasn't played already." Cunning Joe! he thus gets rid of Willum and the shepherd, who is quite fresh again.

No one seems to like the offer, and the umpire is just coming down, when a queer old hat, something like a Doctor of Divinity's shovel, is chucked onto the stage, and an elderly, quiet man steps out, who has been watching the play, saying he should like to cross a stick wi' the prodigalish young chap.

The crowd cheer and begin to chaff Joe, who turns up his nose and swaggers across to the sticks. "Imp'dent old wosbird!" says he, "I'll break the bald head on un to the truth."

The old boy is very bald, certainly, and the blood will show fast enough if you can touch him, Joe.

He takes off his long flapped coat, and stands up in a long flapped waistcoat, which Sir Roger de Coverley might have worn when it was new, picks out a stick, and is ready for Master Joe, who loses no time, but begins his old game—whack, whack, whack—trying to break down the old man's guard by sheer strength. But it won't do—he catches every blow close by the basket, and, though he is rather stiff in his returns, after a minute walks Joe about the stage, and is clearly a stanch old gamester. Joe now comes in, and, making the most of his height, tries to get over the old man's guard at half-stick, by which he takes a smart blow in the ribs and another on the elbow, and nothing more. And now he loses wind and begins to puff, and the crowd laugh, "Cry 'Hold!' Joe—thee'st met thy match!" Instead of taking good advice and getting his wind, Joe loses his temper and strikes at the old man's body.

"Blood! blood!" shout the crowd—"Joe's head's broke!"

Who'd have thought it? How did it come? That body-blow left Joe's head unguarded for a moment, and with one turn of the wrist the old gentleman has picked a neat little bit of skin off the middle of his forehead, and, though he won't believe it, and