“That's a mean trick!” he exclaimed, indignantly. “Give me back my basket, you thief!”
“I ain't got no basket,” said Mike, facing round.
“You pulled my hat over my eyes on purpose to steal my basket.”
“No, I didn't. You insulted me, that's why I did it.”
“Tell me where my basket is, or I'll lick you,” said Paul, incensed.
“I ain't nothin' to do with your basket.”
“Take that, then, for pulling my hat over my eyes,” and Paul, suiting the action to the word, dealt Mike a staggering blow in the face.
“I'll murder you!” shouted Mike, furiously, dashing at Paul with a blow which might have leveled him, if he had not fended it off.
Paul was not quarrelsome, but he knew how to fight, and he was prepared now to fight in earnest, indignant as he was at the robbery which entailed upon him a loss he could ill sustain.
“I'll give you all you want,” he said, resolutely, eyeing Mike warily, and watching a chance to give him another blow.
The contest was brief, being terminated by the sudden and unwelcome arrival of a policeman.
“What's this?” he asked authoritatively, surveying the combatants; Paul, with his flushed face, and Mike, whose nose was bleeding freely from a successful blow of his adversary.
“He pitched into me for nothin',” said Mike, glaring at Paul, and rubbing his bloody nose on the sleeve of his ragged coat.
“That isn't true,” said Paul, excitedly. “He came up while I was selling prize packages of candy in front of the post office, and pulled my hat over my eyes, while another boy grabbed my basket.”
“You lie!” said Mike. “I don't know nothin' of your basket.”
“Why did you pull his hat over his eyes?” asked the policeman.
“I don't blame him much for that,” said the policeman, who was aware of Mike's shady reputation, having on a former occasion been under the necessity of arresting him. Even without such acquaintance, Mike's general appearance would hardly have recommended him to Officer Jones.
“I'll let you go this time,” he said, “but if I catch you fighting again on my beat I'll march you off to the station-house.”
Mike was glad to escape, though he would almost have been willing to be arrested if Paul could have been arrested also.
The officer walked away, and Mike started down the street.