ve himself a greater spring, he landed a
heavy blow somewhere in mid-air. Said locality surviving the attack,
he withdrew to prepare a fresh onslaught.

Meanwhile he began to notice that he was being smartly thumped by the
enemy, and he aimed a supreme effort in that direction.

His blow was not the "immortal passado" mentioned by Mercutio, but
rather the "punto reverso," for it landed him in the dust, while the
enemy remained on high.

Just at this juncture mother Anderson put in her oar, literally as
well as figuratively, for happening to have that instrument of
navigation in her hand, she proceeded to belabor the prostrate Steve.

"Stop that!" screamed Nannie. "Oh, you bad, fiendish woman! Sick her,
Brownie!"

And away went Brownie and attached himself firmly to Madam Anderson's
train, and beginning a swift rotary movement, so bewildered the old
lady that she lost both oar and enemy, and looked more like a
pirouette dancer than a decorous upholder of the cause of individual
freedom and public highways.

By this time Steve had regained his perpendicular, and tingling with
mortification, started in and really did some inspired work. Taking
the foe by the collar, he shook him as a cat would shake a rat.

"You little puppy! Get out of here!" he roared in a most unnatural
voice.

Then with the oar (which mother Anderson had abandoned when she took
to dancing) in one hand and the dangling enemy in the other, he
proceeded down the slope, out upon the little pier, and after sousing
the refractory William in the lake, dropped him into his boat.

"Now you follow him, and be off--both of you!" he said sternly to
madam, who stood upon the pier, squawking like an old hen on the eve
of decapitation.

She lost no time in obeying him, albeit she continued to work nature's
bellows with great vigor as Steve threw in the oar he held and gave
the boat an energetic thrust.

"Steve, you're a trump!" cried Nannie.

Steve looked at her aghast.

Was this the timid little creature he had been protecting? Evidently
he was as much at sea on the feminine question as before marriage.

He walked slowly up to the house and managed to recover his breath
before he was called for the next scene in this rural drama. Truth to
tell he was disgusted, not because of the disgrace of a quarrel,
but--alas for mankind in even his gentlest aspect!--because he had
failed to get a crack at the enemy.

That evening near dinner-time the plot was