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He went forth to see what the world produced; and he found bad weather, rough seas, evils dispositions, and harsh masters. He went as a cabin-boy! Poor living, cold nights, the rope's end, and hard thumps with the fist were his portion.
"This meetin' will now come to order," called out the chairman of dead-shot fame, giving two or three good, hard thumps on the table with his heavy fist. As the buzzing in the room ceased and each man gave his attention the speaker continued. "You fellers all know why we came here to-day.
Those who attempted to carry the more friable articles, owing to the thumps and falls to which these were subjected, found themselves short in supply of utensils long before the journey ended. I have seen a man and wife drinking coffee from one small tin pan, their china and delftware having been left in fragments to decorate the desert wayside.
Then with deliberation he raised his clinched fist and thrust it forcibly against Mr. Tobey's eye, repeating the impact upon his nose, his chin and his cheek in a succession of jarring thumps that were delivered with scientific precision. Algy fairly howled, kicking and struggling to be free.
He started on again without words, and in a very brief space they were racing forward at terrific speed, seeming scarcely to touch the ground so rapid was their progress. Dinah sat with her two hands clutched upon her hat, thankful for the cold rush of air that gave her relief after the fiery intensity of those unsparing kisses. Her heart was beating in great thumps.
She heard wrestling, threshing sounds, and sodden thumps, and a scattering of gravel. These noises seemed at first distant, then grew closer. As she gazed again with keener perception, Moore's horse plunged away from the fiercely struggling forms that had rolled almost under his feet. During the ensuing moments it was an equal battle so far as Columbine could tell.
Of the last the signaler hardly required an account; the growling thumps of heavy shells exploding, kept sending little shivers down the cellar walls, the shiver being, oddly enough, more emphatic when the wail of the falling shell ended in a muffled thump that proclaimed the missile "blind" or "a dud."
But, to her surprise, there came loud thumps from above, and a quivering of the ceiling, and a sound as of rushing steps, and laughter, and uproarious jollity. "What can it be? I am perfectly amazed," said Mistress Yordas to herself. "I must inquire into this." She knew that her sister was out of the way, and the nurse in the kitchen, having one of her frequent feeds and agreeable discourses.
When it was ended, thumps and fisticuffs began to fly about among the assistants; but when it came to the catchpole's turn, they all laid on him so unmercifully with their gauntlets that they at last settled him, all stunned and battered, bruised and mortified, with one of his eyes black and blue, eight ribs bruised, his brisket sunk in, his omoplates in four quarters, his under jawbone in three pieces; and all this in jest, and no harm done.
Stafford takes it all in with downcast eyes. . . I am a competent seaman, he says, with his sly, modest air. A ship's chief mate has no doubt many opportunities to manipulate the chains and anchors to some purpose. . . At this Cloete thumps him on the back: You'll do, my noble sailor. Go in and win. . . "Next thing George knows, his brother tells him that he had occasion to oblige his partner.
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