"Darsen't I?" exclaimed he. "Come back here;" but as Tommy did
not come, he ran up behind him, and aimed a blow at the side of
his head.
Katy's intrepid defender, who had perhaps read in some Fourth of
July oration that "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,"
was not to be surprised, and facing about, he warded off the
blow. Johnny's imperiled reputation rendered him desperate. He
had gone too far to recede, and he went into action with all the
energy and skill of a true bruiser. Tommy was now fully roused,
and his blows, which were strictly in self-defense, fell rapidly
and heavily on the head of his assailant. But I am not going to
give my young readers the particulars of the fight; and I would
not have let Tommy engage in such a scene, were it not to show up
Johnny as he was, and finish the portrait of him which I had
outlined; to show the difference between the noble, generous,
brave, and true-hearted boy, and the little bully, whom all my
young friends have seen and despised.
In something less than two minutes, Johnny Grippen, after
muttering "foul play," backed out with bloody nose, as completely
whipped, and as thoroughly "cowed down," as though he had been
fighting with a royal Bengal tiger. His supremacy was at an end,
and there was danger that some other bold fellow might take it
into his head to thrash the donkey after the lion's skin had been
stripped from his shoulders.
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