But Mr. Pat had
the swift fierce passions of his race; and it became to him an
unendurable thing to be thus bearded by a little spectacled person in
his own den. He saw red; and out shot his good right arm.
The little Doctor proved a good sailer, but bad at making a landing. His
course was arched, smooth, and graceful, but when he stopped, he did it
so bluntly that men working two stories below looked up to ask each
other who was dead. Typesetters left their machines and hurried up,
fearing that here was a case for ambulance or undertaker. But they saw
the fallen editor pick himself up, with a face of stupefied wonder, and
immediately start back toward the angry proof-reader.
Mr. Pat lowered redly on his threshhold. "G'awn now! Get away!"
Queed came to a halt a pace away and stood looking at him.
"G'awn, I tell ye! I don't want no more of your foolin'!"
The young man, arms hanging inoffensively by his side, stared at him
with a curious fixity.
These tactics proved strangely disconcerting to Mr. Pat, obsessed as he
was by a sudden sense of shame at having thumped so impotent an
adversary.
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