it offensive force. It was quite evidently more than the man could or would bear
from any officious stranger. He made this painfully clear through the medium of
an intolerable epithet and an attempt to land his right fist on Whitaker's face.
The face, however, was elsewhere when the fist reached the point for which it had been aimed; and Whitaker closed in promptly as the fellow's body followed
his arm, thrown off balance by the momentum of the unobstructed blow.
Thoroughly angered, he had now every intention of administering a sound and salutary lesson.
In pursuance with this design, he grappled and put forth his strength to throw the
man.
What followed had entered into the calculations of neither. Whitaker felt himself
suddenly falling through air thick with a blinding, choking
