For this gentleman would no sooner get the liver of one antagonist in his fiery clutches than the other would come at him like a runaway horse and require attention that resulted in the escape of the first. And now a liver, heavily embedded in the bulky waist of Mr. Puddlebox, came at him head down with a force and with a fortune of aim that not even a stouter man than the wagoner could have withstood. A very terrible buffet had just been inflicted upon Mr. Puddlebox. A sledge-hammer wallop from the wagoner had caught him in the throat ("_Ooop!_") and remained there, squeezing ("_Arrp!_"). The other hand had then clawed him like a tiger's bite in close proximity to his coveted liver ("_Arrp! Ooop!_"); and the two hands had finally hurled him ten feet away to end in a most shattering fall ("UMP!"). This manoeuvre was carried out by the flaming wagoner from the side of the ditch to which repeated rushes had driven him, and now he turned and directed a stupendous kick at Mr. Wriford, who came fiercely on his left. Mr. Wriford twisted; the immense boot but scraped him. Then Mr. Puddlebox--the flaming wagoner on one leg, vitally exposed. Mr. Puddlebox, head down, eyes shut, arms stretched behind him, hymned on to victory by the music of the broken bottles in his coat-tails, bounding across the road at the highest speed of which he was capable and into the liver-cutting gentleman's own liver and wind with stunning and irresistible force and rich clash of jangling glass. Prone into the ditch the liver-cutting gentleman and there lay--advertising his presence only by those distressing groans which are at once the symptom of a winding and the only sound of which a winded is capable. Mr. Puddlebox, also in the ditch, separated himself from the stricken mass and, stepping upon it, emerged upon the victorious battle-field rubbing his head. A very loud, panting "Hurrah!" from Mr. Wriford; but before further felicitations could be exchanged, attention was demanded by a fourth party to the scene, who had been approaching unobserved for some time, and who now arrived and announced himself with: "Now then--hur!" CHAPTER III DISTURBED EQUIPOISE OF A COUNTERBALANCING MACHINE This was a sergeant of police, short, red, hot, neckless, filled with a seeming excess of bile, or of self-importance, which he must needs correct or affirm--according as it was the one or the other--with a _hur!_ at the end of each sentence, and balanced by prodigious development in the rear against the remarkable fullness beneath his tunic in the front, which he carried rather as though it were a drum or some other detachable article that must be conducted with care.