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That sounds very dreadful and horrible, and it is, if you are thinking of a great, brutal, brogan kick, such as a stupid farmer gives to his patient oxen; but not, if you mean only a delicate, compact, penetrative punch with the toe of a tight-fitting gaiter, addressed rather to the conscience than the shins, to the sensibilities rather than the senses.

All the time that he was singing the vespers he was skylarking like an imp. While he was pouring out the most divine melody, he would take the opportunity of kicking the shins of the boy next to him, and while he was waiting for his part, he would kick out behind at any one who was incautious enough to approach him. There never was such a vicious boy; he kept the whole loft in a ferment.

Then came a leaping-match over a ten-railed fence, resulting in the barking of some shins and the demolition of sundry panels of rail. Joe Keating, the wildest rider I ever knew, had emptied his tumbler too often, and insisted on running his horse home through the woods.

I should have laughed had I not suddenly felt his hand on my throat. I kicked his shins hard, and fell backwards over a chest. He went back a step or two, flourished his arm, beat his chest, and turned furiously upon Carlos. "He will get us murdered," he said. "Do you think we are safe here? If these people here heard that name they wouldn't wait to ask who your worship is.

The midday hour is almost on us. I have no further time to waste on thine affairs. Put the girl up on the catasta," he added, speaking in his usual harsh, curt way, "and take this woman's arms from round my shins." And it was characteristic of him that this time he did not interfere with his lictors when they handled the woman with their accustomed roughness.

Why do we not get us gone? Whereto Bruno answered, 'Let us begone; but I vow to God that Calandrino shall never again serve me thus, and were I presently near him as I have been all the morning, I would give him such a clout on the shins with this stone that he should have cause to remember this trick for maybe a month to come. To say this and to let fly at Calandrino's shins with the stone were one and the same thing; and the latter, feeling the pain, lifted up his leg and began to puff and blow, but yet held his peace and fared on.

After that we shall prowl about Westminster Abbey and ruin our eyesight reading inscriptions on tombs. After that we shall be arrested in France for our Franco-American accent. We shall break our collar bones and bruise our shins doing strenuous Alpine stunts, and we shall turn a disapproving eye upon Russia and incidentally expose a few Nihilists.

"I ain't never got a kiss from ye yet, brat," he chuckled. "'Course not," she responded; "but 'tain't because ye ain't fit fer one, now air it, Sandy?" "No, ye can bet on that," laughed the man, "an' I got marks on my shins to this day you put on 'em the last time I tried it. But I like to see ye fight, brat, I swear I do.... Now, how about gettin' married to me, huh?"

"But how in thunder was I ter know as any of 'em c'd understand English? Simon Sprott never let on that he was anythin' but a pure Injun until after I was condemned." "You ain't hurt any, I hope?" Kiddie inquired. "Nope. Shins are some scorched. Moccasins an' leggin's are spoilt, an' my eyes are nippin'. Oh, an' they've took my six-shooter, Kiddie. D'you reckon we c'n get it back?"

They are a public nuisance, inasmuch as they are wheeled against and between people's legs, and are a fruitful source of the breaking of shins, of the spraining of ankles, of the crushing of corns, and of the ruffling of the tempers of the foot-passengers who unfortunately come within their reach; while, in all probability, the gaping nurses are staring another way, and every way indeed but the right, more especially if there be a redcoat in the path!