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Page 44
As Tom had walked along his head had sunk lower and lower in thought.
His sudden exclamation had been brought forth by the fact that he had
bumped violently into another human being.
"Cantch er look out where you're going?" demanded an ugly voice.
"I should have been looking out, my friend," Tom replied amiably. "It
was very careless of me. I trust, that I haven't done you serious
harm."
"Quit yer sass!" ordered the other, who was a tall, broad-shouldered and
very surly looking fellow of thirty.
"I don't much blame you for being peevish," Reade went on. "Still, I
think there has been no serious harm done. Good night, friend."
"No, ye don't!" snarled the other. "Nothing of the slip-away-easy
style, like that!"
"Why, what do you want?" I asked Tom, opening his eyes in genuine
surprise.
"Ye thick-headed idiot!" rasped the surly stranger. "Ye--"
From that the stranger launched into a strain of abuse that staggered
the young engineer.
"Say no more," begged Reade generously. "I accept your apology, just as
you've phrased it."
"Apology, ye fool!" growled the stranger.
"That won't do. Put up your hands!"
"Why?"
"So ye can fight, ye--"
"Fight?" echoed Tom, with a shake of his bead. "On a hot night like
this? No, sir! I refuse."
Tom would have passed peaceably on his way, but the stranger suddenly
let go a terrific right-hander. Had Tom Reade received the blow he
would have gone to the ground. But the young engineer's athletic
training stood by him. He slid out, easily and gracefully, but was
compelled to wheel and face his assailant.
"Don't," urged Tom. "It's too hot."
"I'm hot myself," leered the stranger, dancing nearer.
"You look it," Tom admitted. "If you don't stop dancing, you'll soon be
hotter. It makes me warm to look at you."
"Stop this one, ye tin-horn!" snarled the stranger.
"Certainly," agreed Tom, blocking the blow. "However, I wish you
wouldn't be so strenuous. One of us may get hurt."
This last escaped Reade as he blocked the blow, and again displayed a
neat little bit of footwork.
"Let's see you stop this one!" taunted the bully.
"Certainly," agreed Tom, and did so.
"And this one. And this! Here's another!"
By this time the blows were raining in fast and thick. Tom's agile
footwork kept him out of reach of the hard, hammer-like fists of the
stranger.
Tom had been bred in athletics. He was comparative master of boxing,
but before this interchange of blows had gone far the young engineer
realized that he had met a doughty opponent.
What Tom didn't know was that his present foe was an ex-prizefighter,
who had sunk low in the scale of life.
What the lad didn't even suspect was that the man had been hired to pick
a fight with him, and that the fight was for desperate stakes.
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