you heard the
collapsible gates run to their sockets with a glad clang, and the gas
was switched off.

The fester of noise widened and widened, and at last burst into twenty
minute pieces. And now a large voice commanded the silence of the night,
and cried upon London: "What I said is what I say now: that fan-tan is
fan-tan. And blasted miracles is blasted miracles."

I stood on the tug, with some of the boys, and in silence we watched the
drama that was about to unfold itself. I had tramped there,
unthinkingly, up the thunderous length of Rotherhithe Tunnel and down
East India Dock Road and had fallen in with Chuck Lightfoot and some of
his waterside cronies. We were lounging on the tug, so far as I
remember, because we were lounging on the tug. For no other reason.

After the outcry of the Great Voice, there was a short silence. It was
broken by a woman, who cried: "Ar-ferr!"

"You go on 'ome!" cried Arfer.

The woman replied that bad-word husbands who stayed out so bad-wordily
late ought to be bad-wordily bad-worded. The next moment Arfer had gone
down to a blow from the Great Voice.

Things began to happen. There was a loud scratch as a hundred feet
scuttered backward. The victim sprang up. For a moment astonishment
seemed to hold him, as he bleared; then he seemed about to burst with
wrath; then he became a cold sportsman. The lady screamed for aid. He
spat on his hands. He hitched his trousers. Hands down, chin protruded,
he advanced on his opponent with the slow, insidious movement of the
street fighter. The other man dashed in, beat him off with the left, and
followed it with three to the face with the right. He pressed his man.
He ducked a lumbering right swing, and sent a one-two to the body. The
lady had lashed herself to a whirlwind of profanity. She spat words at
the crowd, and oaths fell like toads from her lips. We below heard the
crowd and the lady; but we saw only the principals of the combat until
... until the lady, disregarding the ethics of the game, flew in with
screwed face, caught the coming arm of the big man, and pinioned it
beneath her own.

"'Elp, 'elp, some of yeh!" she cried. Her husband fastened on to his
enemy, tore at his collar with wild fingers, opened his mouth, and tried
to bite. The big man struggled with both. The bulky form of the lady was
swung back and forth by his cunning arm; and one heard the crowd stand
by, press in, rush back, in rhythm to the movements of the battl