No words
from Harry, the Baltimorean,--one of the quiet sort, who strike first,
and do the talking, if there is any, afterwards. No words, but, in the
place thereof, a clean, straight, hard hit, which took effect with a
spank like the explosion of a percussion-cap, knocking the slayer of
beeves down a sand-bank,--followed, alas! by the too impetuous youth, so
that both rolled down together, and the conflict terminated in one of
those inglorious and inevitable Yankee _clinches_, followed by a general
_melee_, which make our native fistic encounters so different from such
admirably-ordered contests as that which I once saw at an English fair,
where everything was done decently and in order, and the fight began and
ended with such grave propriety, that a sporting parson need hardly have
hesitated to open it with a devout petition, and, after it was over,
dismiss the ring with a benediction.
I can't help telling one more story about this great field-day, though
it is the most wanton and irrelevant digression. But all of us have a
little speck of fight underneath our peace and goodwill to men,--just
a speck, for revolutions and great emergencies, you know,--so that we
should not submit to be trodden quite flat by the first heavy-heeled
aggressor that came along.
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