<h2><SPAN name="page244"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>XXIX.</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Butson</span> was perhaps a shade
relieved when he returned home that night and found all quiet,
and Johnny in bed. He had half expected that his
inopportune return might have caused trouble. But the night
after, as he came from the railway station, a little earlier than
usual, Johnny stopped him in the street.</p>
<p>“I want to speak to you,” he said.
“Just come round by the dock wall.”</p>
<p>His manner was quiet and businesslike, but Mr. Butson
wondered. “Why?” he asked.
“Can’t you tell me here?”</p>
<p>“No, I can’t. There are too many people
about. It’s money in your pocket if you
come.”</p>
<p>Mr. Butson went. What it meant he could not imagine, but
Johnny usually told the truth, and he said it would be money in
his pocket—a desirable disposition of the article.
The dock wall was just round a corner. A tall, raking wall
at one side of a sparsely lit road that was empty at night, and a
lower wall at the other; the road reached by a flight of steps
rising from the street, and a gateway in the low wall.</p>
<p><SPAN name="page245"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
245</span>“Well, what is it now?” Mr. Butson asked,
suspiciously, as Johnny stopped under a gas-lamp and looked right
and left along the deserted road.</p>
<p>“Only just this,” Johnny replied, with simple
distinctness. “You wanted mother to give you my money
every week, though in fact she’s been letting me keep
it. Well, here’s my last week’s
money”—he shook it in his hand—“and
I’ll give it you if you’ll stand up here and fight
me.”</p>
<p>“What? Fight you? You?” Mr.
Butson laughed; but he felt a secret uneasiness.</p>
<p>“Yes, me. You’d rather fight a woman, no
doubt, or a lame girl. But I’m going to give you a
change, and make you fight me—here.” Johnny
flung his jacket on the ground and his hat on it.</p>
<p>“Don’t be such a young fool,” quoth Mr.
Butson loftily. “Put on your jacket an’ come
home.”</p>
<p>“Yes—presently,” Johnny replied
grimly. “Presently I’ll go home, and take you
with me. Come, you’re ready enough to punch my
mother, without being asked; or my sister. Come and punch
me, and take pay for it!”</p>
<p>Mr. Butson was a little uncomfortable. “I
suppose,” he sneered, “you’ve got a knife or a
poker or somethin’ about you like what you threatened me
with before!”</p>
<p>“I haven’t even brought a stick.
You’re the sort o’ <SPAN name="page246"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>coward I expected, though
you’re bigger than me and heavier. Come—”
he struck the man a heavy smack on the mouth. “Now
fight!”</p>
<p>Butson snarled, and cut at the lad’s head with the
handle of his walking stick. But Johnny’s arm
straightened like a flash, and Butson rolled over.</p>
<p>“What I thought you’d do,” remarked Johnny,
seizing his wrist and twisting the stick away. “Now
get up. Come on!”</p>
<p>Mr. Butson sat and gasped. He fingered his nose gently,
and found it very tender, and bleeding. He seemed to have
met a thunderbolt in the dark. He turned slowly over on his
knees, and so got on his feet.</p>
<p>“Hit me—come, hit me!” called Johnny,
sparring at him. “Fancy I’m only my mother, you
cur! Come, I’m hitting you—see!
So!” He seized the man by the ear, twisted it, and
rapped him about the face. The treatment would have roused
a sheep. Butson sprang at Johnny, grappled with him, and
for a moment bore him back. Johnny asked nothing
better. He broke ground, checked the rush with half-arm
hits, and stopped it with a quick double left, flush in the
face.</p>
<p>It was mere slaughter; Johnny was too hard, too scientific,
too full of cool hatred. The wretched Butson, bigger and
heavier as he might be, was flaccid from soft living, and science
he had none. But he fought like a <SPAN name="page247"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>rat in a
corner—recking nothing of rule, but kicking, biting,
striking, wrestling madly; though to small purpose: for his
enemy, deadly calm and deadly quick, saw every movement ere it
was made, and battered with savage precision.</p>
<p>“Whenever you’ve had enough,” said Johnny,
as Butson staggered, and leaned against the wall, “you can
stop it, you know, by calling the p’lice. You like
the p’lice. There’s always one of ’em in
the next street, an’ you’ve only to shout. I
shall hammer you till ye do!”</p>
<p>And he hammered. A blow on the ear drove Butson’s
head against the wall, and a swing from the other fist brought it
away again. He flung himself on the ground.</p>
<p>“Get up!” cried Johnny. “Get up.
What, you won’t? All right, you went down by
yourself, you know—so’s to be let alone. But
I’m coming down too!” and with that he lay beside
Butson and struck once more and struck again.</p>
<p>“Chuck it!” groaned Butson. “I’m
done! Oh! leave me alone!”</p>
<p>“Leave you alone?” answered Johnny, rising and
reaching for his jacket. “Not I. You
didn’t leave my mother alone a soon as she asked you, did
you? I’ll never pass you again without clouting your
head. Come home!”</p>
<p><SPAN name="page248"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>He
hauled the bruised wretch up by the collar, crammed his hat on
his head and cut him across the calves with his own walking
stick. “Go on! March!”</p>
<p>“Can’t you leave me alone now?” whined
Butson. “You done enough, ain’t ye?”</p>
<p>“No—not near enough. An’ you’ll
have a lot more if you don’t do as I tell you. I said
I’d take you home, an’ I will. Go
on!”</p>
<p>Two or three dark streets led to Harbour Lane, but they were
short. It was past closing time, and when they reached the
shop the lights were turned down and the door shut. Nan
opened to Johnny’s knock, and he thrust Butson in before
him. “Here he is,” said Johnny, “not
thrashed half enough!”</p>
<p>Dusty and bleeding, his face nigh unrecognisable under cuts
and bruises, Butson sat on a box, a figure of shame. Nan
screamed and ran to him.</p>
<p>“I did it where the neighbours wouldn’t
hear,” Johnny explained, “and if he’d been a
man he’d have drowned himself rather than come here, after
the way I’ve treated him. He’s a poor cur,
an’ I’ll buy a whip for him. There’s the
money I promised you” he went on, putting it on the
box. “It’s the first you’ve earned for
years, and the last you’ll have here, if I can manage
it!”</p>
<p>But Nan was crying over that dishonourable head, and wiping it
with her handkerchief.</p>
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