Page:The New Arcadia (Tucker).djvu/25

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DICK SHOWN THE BACK-DOOR.
15

his feet with one from the shoulder. And we saw no more of Mr. Malduke."

"Valiant Dick!" exclaimed the maiden.

At that moment there was a knock at the door that opened directly on the street.

"Good-evening, Miss Elms," said a round, thick-set young man as he entered.

"Why, it's Dick himself," exclaimed the girl. "We were just speaking of you, Mr. Malduke. Talk of the angels and you see their wings."

The visitor seemed in no mood for badinage.

"What have you that bandage across your eye for?" asked the girl, not very sympathetically. "You've been fighting, I do declare."

"Blowed if I have," replied the man moodily; "it's only a cowardly blow that I'll be avenged for yet."

"Why didn't you up and give it him back then and there?" suggested the Sergeant, with a laugh. "Never mind, old boy, he was too big for you. 'He that fights and runs away'—you know the rest. You have to fight another day, you know. Come and have some supper any way, now."

Midst light banter, that the young man only half appreciated, another plate was set, and the events of the day discussed.

"I walked with the doctor towards the hospital," said the elder man, "and he told me—seeing, I suppose, that I knew a thing or two—that he and his friends had a scheme for mending matters. Strange we should have set upon him! He's had a practice up country, and seems to know all about the life, and a lot about the social question, too, though of course I could teach him a lot."

The daughter looked up amused, but said nothing.