The Club of Queer Trades
The man who had hold of me let go and turned to his rescue, but I leaped up like a spring released, and, to my infinite satisfaction, knocked the fellow down. The other footman, bleeding at the mouth and quite demoralized, was stumbling out of the room. My late captor, without a word, slunk after him, seeing that the battle was won. Rupert was sitting astride the pinioned Mr. Greenwood, Basil astride the pinioned Mr. Burrows.
To my surprise the latter gentleman, lying bound on his back, spoke in a perfectly calm voice to the man who sat on top of him.
"And now, gentlemen," he said, "since you have got your own way, perhaps you wouldn't mind telling us what the deuce all this is?"
"This," said Basil, with a radiant face, looking down at his captive, "this is what we call the survival of the fittest."
Rupert, who had been steadily collecting himself throughout the later phases of the fight, was intellectually altogether himself again at the end of it. Springing up from
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