ds; Sedgett thundered his. They tussled,
and each having inflicted an unpleasant squeeze on the other, they came
apart by mutual consent, and exchanged half-length blows. Overhead, the
cabman--not merely a cabman, but an individual--flicked the flanks of
his horse, and cocked his eye and head in answer to gesticulations from
shop-doors and pavement.

"Let 'em fight it out, I'm impartial," he remarked; and having lifted
his little observing door, and given one glance, parrot-wise, below,
he shut away the troubled prospect of those mortals, and drove along
benignly.

Epsom permitted it; but Ewell contained a sturdy citizen, who, smoking
his pipe under his eaves, contemplative of passers-by, saw strife
rushing on like a meteor. He raised the waxed end of his pipe, and with
an authoritative motion of his head at the same time, pointed out the
case to a man in a donkey-cart, who looked behind, saw pugnacity upon
wheels, and manoeuvred a docile and wonderfully pretty-stepping little
donkey in such a manner that the cabman was fain to pull up.

The combatants jumped into the road.

"That's right, gentlemen; I don't want to spile sport," said the
donkey's man. "O' course you ends your Epsom-day with spirit."

"There's sunset on their faces," said the cabman. "Would you try a
by-lane, gentlemen?"

But now the donkey's man had inspected the figures of the antagonistic
couple.

"Taint fair play," he said to Sedgett. "You leave that gentleman alone,
you, sir?"

The man with the pipe came up.

"No fighting," he observed. "We ain't going to have our roads disgraced.
It shan't be said Englishmen don't know how to enjoy themselves without
getting drunk and disorderly. You drop your fists."

The separation had to be accomplished by violence, for Algernon's blood
was up.

A crowd was not long in collecting, which caused a stoppage of vehicles
of every description.

A gentleman leaned from an open carriage to look at the fray critically,
and his companion stretching his neck to do likewise, "Sedgett!" burst
from his lips involuntarily.

The pair of original disputants (for there were many by this time)
turned their heads simultaneously toward the carriage.

"Will you come on?" Sedgett roared, but whether to Algernon, or to one
of the gentlemen, or one of the crowd, was indefinite. None responding,
he shook with ox-like wrath, pushed among shoulders, and plunged back to
his seat, making the cabman above bound and sway, a