esk; he was resolved
to do nothing, but when the attorney brushed against him in passing,
turning his superior smile full in his face, he raised his arm. The next
moment the two men were lying beside the press, struggling and gasping,
locked fast and fighting for advantage, legs intertwined and each
grasping the other by a wrist. The editor was on top, but the heavier
attorney was working with the energy of hate, and as they panted and
struggled the door opened and Eliph' Hewlitt entered.

There was strength in his wiry arms, and he threw himself upon the upper
man and dragged him backward. The attorney loosened his hold and the two
men stood up, panting and gulping, and soon began to brush their clothes
and look at the floor for dropped articles, as men do who have fought
inconclusively and are not sorry to have been parted. The only real
damage seemed to have been done to Eliph's spectacles, which he had
shaken off in his efforts, and which had been crushed beneath a heel.
The attorney presently smiled, but it was a silly smile, and then he
went out of the door and down the street.

Eliph' coughed gently behind his hand, as if to excuse his intrusion.

"Quarreling?" he suggested. "I used to wrestle some when I was a boy.
But not much. I hadn't then the rules, given on page 554 of Jarby's
Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art,
including "How to Wrestle, How to Defend Oneself Against Sudden Attack,
Jui Jitsu," et cetery, with wood cuts showing the best holds and how
to get them. All this being but one of one thousand and one subjects
treated of in this work, the price of which is but five dollars, neatly
bound in cloth."

The editor had turned his back and was staring angrily out of the
window--sulkily tremulous would be a better description, perhaps--when
he suddenly cried out. Eliph' searched hurriedly in his pockets for
another pair of spectacles, found them and put them on, and looked where
the editor pointed. Across the street the attorney, backed up against
the wall of the bank, was defending his face with one arm, and with his
right hand seeking to grasp a ship that was raining blows upon his face
and head. Someone grasped the whip from behind and wrenched it from the
hand of the attorney's assailant, and as the man turned angrily, the two
in the window saw that it was Colonel Guthrie.

They heard him cursing those who had taken the ship from him, ending by
loudly justifying