Now you can't say your precious bull is going to get
more valuable the longer you keep him; he'll have his little day, and
then, if you go on keeping him, he'll come down at last to a few
shillingsworth of hoofs and hide, just at a time, perhaps, when my bull
is being bought for a big sum for some important picture gallery."
It was too much. The united force of truth and slander and insult put
over heavy a strain on Tom Yorkfield's powers of restraint. In his right
hand he held a useful oak cudgel, with his left he made a grab at the
loose collar of Laurence's canary-coloured silk shirt. Laurence was not
a fighting man; the fear of physical violence threw him off his balance
as completely as overmastering indignation had thrown Tom off his, and
thus it came to pass that Clover Fairy was regaled with the unprecedented
sight of a human being scudding and squawking across the enclosure, like
the hen that would persist in trying to establish a nesting-place in the
manger. In another crowded happy moment the bull was trying to jerk
Laurence over his left shoulder, to prod him in the ribs while still in
the air, and to kneel on him when he reached the ground.
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