Storm (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1914. Excerpt: ... xxin "a Pair Wuth Th' Fisties" HE came to the side of his craft, crawled over the rail, deliberately hoisting his body on arms as thick at the biceps as a common man's thigh, the muscles playing smoothly under the flaming skin. He stood up to face me, his fists on his hips. "Well, ut hod t' coom afore we was through ut--eh, Manta?" he said. "Yes," I answered, impatiently, for I was tickling to be at him. "One of yoor friends got a watch?" he queried. "This is none of your dude fights," I cried, disgusted with his deliberation. "Yoo don't want it reg'lar, then?" It occurred to me that he was laughing at me. I started toward him, swinging my hands like any school-child. "To hell with you and your talk," I bellowed, and rushed him with my head down. And here the man might have cleared his hands of the fight and of me without further pains simply by stepping aside and allowing me to gallop with my eyes closed right over the rail of his boat, and ten chances to one down the open hatch, a good drop into a three-foot layer of stinking fish. But Jock Crimson would have cut off his right hand before he would have done that, the more now he saw how lusty and heavy-witted I was about the game. So he brought me up with a blow on my chin that seemed to whirl the wharf from under my feet and whirl it back again at the flat of my shoulders, with a million threads of flame streaming across my eyeballs. When these had cleared away I found myself staring up at a row of inverted faces, most of them with mouths open at strange angles. My face throbbed with shooting spasms, my tongue licked at lips that did not seem to be mine. He had floored me as neatly as a boy might knock down a sunflower stalk. He was laughing at me now frankly. I got myself to my knees a little shakily ...