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One of them had got three months for taking a fancy to a copper boiler that he had found in an empty house, and they discovered that a bricklayer, who lived next door, had put the police on his track. The Push resolved to stoush him, and had lain in wait for a week without success. Jonah took the matter in hand, and inquired secretly into the man's habits.
To him it is a nasty scrunch of the two hundred and twenty-six bones forming his own admirably designed osseous structure; a dull, sickening wallop of his exquisitely composed cellular, muscular, and nervous tissues; a general squash of his beautifully mapped vascular system; a pitiless stoush of membranes, ligaments, cartilages, and what not; a beastly squelch of gastric and pancreatic juices and secretions of all imaginable descriptions biliary, glandular, and so forth.
I knew him well after that, and only heard one man say a word against him." "And did you stoush him?" "No; I was going to, but Tom wouldn't let me. He said he was frightened I might make a mess of it, and he did it himself." "Did what? Make a mess of it?" "He made a mess of the other man that slandered that publican. I'd be funny if I was you. Where's the matches?" "And could Tom fight?" "Yes.
If Smith wouldn't do as Steelman told him, or wasn't successful in cadging, or mugged any game they had in hand, Steelman would threaten to stoush him; and, if the warning proved ineffectual after the second or third time, he would stoush him. One day, on the track, they came to a place where an old Scottish couple kept a general store and shanty.
"And," added Steelman, solemnly and grimly, "if you get taken down for 'em, or lose 'em out of the top-hole in your pocket, or spend so much as a shilling in riotous living, I'll stoush you, Smith." Smith didn't seem interested.
"'Now, look here, I said, shaking my fist at him, like that, 'if you say a word, I'll stoush yer! "'Well, he said, 'well, you needn't be in such a sweat to jump down a man's throat. I've got my swag under the bed, and I was just going to ask you for the loan of the rope when you're done with it. "Well, we chummed. His name was Tom Tom something, I forget the other name, but it doesn't matter.
He might meet you in after years when you had forgotten all about your trespass if indeed you had ever been conscious of it and "stoush" you unexpectedly on the ear. Also you might regard him as your friend, on occasion, and yet he would stand by and hear a perfect stranger tell you the most outrageous lies, to your hurt, and know that the stranger was telling lies, and never put you up to it.
We've always been pretty straight anyway, even if we are a pair of vagabonds, and I don't half like this new business; but it had to be done. If I hadn't taken down that sharper you'd have lost confidence in me and wouldn't have been able to mask your feelings, and I'd have had to stoush you.
It'll do you more harm than good; and it ain't a friendly thing nor the right thing for me who always had your welfare at heart to give it to you under the circumstances. Now, get away out of my sight, and don't come near me till you've reformed. If you do, I'll have to stoush you out of regard for my own health and feelings."
There was the usual man who thought as much and knew all about it from the first, but he wasn't appreciated. We suppressed him. One or two wanted to go back and "stoush" that landlord, and the driver stopped the coach cheerfully at their request; but they said they'd come across him again and allowed themselves to be persuaded out of it.
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