"Oh give him a hand, Adderley!" said Walden, good-naturedly. "Help him up! He's had his beating!"
"He hasn't,"--declared Julian, with a lachrymose air of intense regret--"I wish he had! He is less hurt than if he had fallen off his bicycle. He is in no pain;--would that he were!"
Here Leveson managed to partially lift himself on one side. "Assault!" he stuttered--"Assault--common assault---"
"AND battery,"--said Julian--"You can summons me, my dear sir--if you feel so inclined! I shall be happy to explain the whole incident in court--and also to pay the five pounds penalty. I only wish I could have got more for my money. There's such a lot of you!--such a lot!" he repeated, musingly, "And I've only sailed round such a small portion of your vast fleshy continent!"
Walden controlled his laughter, and stooping, offered to assist Leveson to get up, but the indignant 'Putty' refused all aid, and setting his own two hands firmly against the ground, tried again to rise.
"Remove your legs, sir!" he shouted to Julian, who still stood across him in apparent abstraction--"How dare you--how dare you pin me down in this fashion?--how dare---"
Here his voice died away choked by rage.
"You are witty without knowing it, my fat friend!" said Julian languidly--"Legs, in slang parlance, are sometimes known as 'pins,'- -therefore, when you say I 'pin' you down, you use an expression which is, like the 'mobled queen' in Hamlet, good. Be unpinned, good priest--and remember that you must be prepared to say your prayers backwards, next time you slander a woman!"
He relaxed his position, and Leveson with an effort scrambled to his feet, covered with dust. Picking up his cap from the gutter where it had fallen, he got his bicycle and prepared to mount it. He presented a most unlovely spectacle--his face, swollen and crimson with fury, seemed twice its usual size,--his little piggy eyes rolled in his head like those of a man threatened with apoplexy--and the oily perspiration stood upon his brow and trickled from his carroty hair in great drops.
"You shall pay for this!" he said in low vindictive tones, shaking his fist at both Walden and Adderley--"There are one or two old scores to be wiped off in this village, and mine will help to increase the account! Your fine lady at the Manor isn't going to have everything her own way, I can tell you--nor you either, you-- you--you upstart!"