MR. BUTSON 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.
"I want to speak to you," he said. "Just come round by the dock wall."
His manner was quiet and businesslike, but Mr. Butson wondered. "Why?"
he asked. "Can't you tell me here?"
"No, I can't. There are too many people about. It's money in your
pocket if you come."
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.
"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.
"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."
"What? Fight you? You?" Mr. Butson laughed; but he felt a secret
uneasiness.
"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.
"Don't be such a young fool," quoth Mr. Butson loftily. "Put on your
jacket an' come home."
"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!"
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!"
"I haven't even brought a stick. You're the sort o' coward I expected,
though you're bigger than me and heavier. Come--" he struck the man a
heavy smack on the mouth. "Now fight!"
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.
"What I thought you'd do," remarked Johnny, seizing his wrist and
twisting the stick away. "Now get up. Come on!"
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.
"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.
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
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.
"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!"
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.
"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.
"Chuck it!" groaned Butson. "I'm done! Oh! leave me alone!"
"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!"
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!"
"Can't you leave me alone now?" whined Butson. "You done enough, ain't
ye?"
"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!"
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!"
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.
"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!"
But Nan was crying over that dishonourable head, and wiping it with her
handkerchief.