Against the far wall, breathing hard and fondling his left eye with a
four-ounce glove, leaned Steve Dingle. His nose was bleeding somewhat
freely, but this he appeared to consider a trifle unworthy of serious
attention. On the floor, an even more disturbing spectacle, Kirk lay at
full length. To Mrs. Porter's startled gaze he appeared to be dead. He
too, was bleeding, but he was not in a position to notice it.
'It's all right, ma'am,' said Steve, removing the hand from his face
and revealing an eye which for spectacular dilapidation must have
rivalled the epoch-making one which had so excited his mother on a
famous occasion. 'It's nothing serious.'
'Has Mr. Winfield fainted?'
'Not exactly fainted, ma'am. It's like this. He'd got me clear up in a
corner, and I seen it's up to me if I don't want to be knocked through
the wall, so I has to cross him. Maybe I'd gotten a little worked up
myself by then. But it was my fault. I told him to go all out, and he
sure did. This eye's going to be a pippin to-morrow.'
Mrs. Porter examined the wounded organ with interest.
'That, I suppose Mr. Dingle, is what you call a blue eye?'
'It sure is, ma'am.'
'What has been happening?'
'Well, it's this way. I see he's all worked up, sitting around doing
nothing except wait, so I makes him come and spar a round to take his
mind off it. My old dad, ma'am, when I was coming along, found that
dope fixed him all right, so I reckoned it would do as much good here.
My old dad went and beat the block off a fellow down our street, and it
done him a lot of good.'
Mrs. Porter shook his gloved hand.
'Mr. Dingle,' she said with enthusiasm, 'I really believe that you are
the only sensible man I have ever met. Your common sense is
astonishing. I have no doubt you saved Mr. Winfield from a nervous
break-down. Would you be kind enough, when you are rested, to fetch
some water and bring him to and inform him that he is the father of a
son?'
William Bannister Winfield was the most wonderful child. Of course,
you had to have a certain amount of intelligence to see this. To the
vapid and irreflective observer he was not much to look at in the early
stages of his career, having a dough-like face almost entirely devoid
of nose, a lack-lustre eye, and the general appearance of a poached
egg. His immediate circle of intimates, however, thought him a model of
manly beauty; and there was the undeniable fact that he had come into
the world weighing nine pounds. Take him for all in all, a lad of
promise.
Kirk's sense of being in a dream continued. His identity seemed to have
undergone a change. The person he had known as Kirk Winfield had
disappeared, to be succeeded by a curious individual bubbling over with
an absurd pride for which it was not easy to find an outlet. Hitherto a
rather reserved man, he was conscious now of a desire to accost perfect
strangers in the street and inform them that he was not the ordinary
