ess-like briskness,
"if you're looking for a fight, you can set right to me. You needn't
think you can come down here and run things--you--" He followed this
with an easy roll of oaths, intended to goad his victim into action.

A reformed prize-fighter had once told Van Bibber that there were six
rules to observe in a street fight. He said he had forgotten the first
five, but the sixth one was to strike first. Van Bibber turned his
head towards Miss Cuyler. "You had better run," he said, over his
shoulder; and then, turning quickly, he brought his left fist, with
all the strength and weight of his arm and body back of it, against
the end of the new-comer's chin.

This is a most effective blow. This is so because the lower jaw is
anatomically loose; and when it is struck heavily, it turns and jars
the brain, and the man who is struck feels as though the man who
struck him had opened the top of his skull and taken his brains in his
hand and wrenched them as a brakeman wrenches a brake. If you shut
your teeth hard, and rap the tip of your chin sharply with your
knuckles, you can get an idea of how effective this is when multiplied
by an arm and all the muscles of a shoulder.

The man threw up his arms and went over backwards, groping blindly
with his hands.

Van Bibber heard a sharp rapping behind him frequently repeated; he
could not turn to see what it was, for one of the remaining men was
engaging him in front, and the other was kicking at his knee-cap, and
striking at his head from behind. He was no longer cool; he was
grandly and viciously excited; and, rushing past his opponent, he
caught him over his hip with his left arm across his breast, and so
tossed him, using his hip for a lever.

A man in this position can be thrown so that he will either fall as
lightly as a baby falls from his pillow to the bed, or with sufficient
force to break his ribs. Van Bibber, being excited, threw him the
latter way. Seeing this, the second man, who had so far failed to find
Van Bibber's knee-cap, backed rapidly away, with his hands in front of
him.

"Here," he cried, "lem'me alone; I'm not in this."

"Oh yes, you are," cried Van Bibber, gasping, but with fierce
politeness. "Excuse me, but you are. Put up your hands; I'm going to
kill _you_."

He had a throbbing feeling in the back of his head, and his breathing
was difficult. He could still hear the heavy, irregular rapping behind
him, but it had become confused with the