“Arter we had bin at it about fifteen minutes we held a sort of informal truce, just arter a simultaneous exchange of compliments, which left the Doctor layin’ across the grindstone and me astride the pump. It was the first chance I had of gittin’ a fair look at him, since we started in. I see he was punished mi’ty bad. One eye was retirin’ from active service pooty fast, while his face ginnerally looked as if he had bin bobbin’ for pennies in a dish of tomato sauce. I reckon he wasn’t aware he presented such an appearance, for ses he:— “‘You’re lookin’ mi’ty bad, Dudley, and you mout as well gin up now as any time, for you’ll eventually have to holler.’ “‘If I looked one-half as bad as you do, Doctor, I would holler,’ I answered. “‘I ginnerally have to look about this bad before my blood gits up to a fightin’ heat,’ he ses detarminedly. “‘Wal,’ ses I, ‘I’ve fit at every election for the last five years, and last Fourth, put the bully mate of Terre Haute into a coal bunker, blind as a bat, and I cal’late no derned pill-mixer is agwine to git away with me very bad.’ “‘You’ll have to be born ag’in before you can whale me, Dudley,’ he shouted, ‘for I’ll fight while there’s enough blood left in me to lunch a stall-fed musketeer.’ “‘We both suck through the same straw then, Doctor,’ ses I, ‘for I cal’late to stick to you like a poor man’s plaster to a beggar’s ribs or I’ll have the worth of the widder’s chickens out on ye,’ and with that I spit out his finger that I had forgot all about, and the hul time had bin chawin’ like a piece of flag-root, I was so burnin’ mad. I allers will think he would have gin up the fight then, if he hadn’t seen me spit out the finger. He looked down at his maimed hand and then at me, and the awful sight seemed to spur him on ag’in. “‘You cannibal varmint!’ he hollered, as he edged up to me. ‘I’ll make head-cheese of ye!’ and with that he made a pass at me; so at it we went ag’in, hotter than ever, hands up and heads down like fightin’ wasps, round and about, over the goose-house and wheelbarrow spat-a-te-kick, and down into the sink pool roll-et-e-roll, and the hair was a-flyin’ and the teeth war a-spinnin’. I got in a left-handed wipe on his chin while his mouth was open, swarin’, and I made his jaws snap like a wolf trap, and sent one of his molars a-buzzin’ through the kitchen winder like a bullet from a Springfield muskit. [Illustration: HANDS UP AND HEADS DOWN.] “I never knowed a man could lose so much blood and stand up arter it, until I had that fight with Dr. Tweezer. The blood was a-flyin’ from him every which way, like the water from a sprinklin’ cart, and yet he wouldn’t holler.