“All right, Ben,” he muttered. “That’s enough, now. I don’t care what he says, but I’ve had enough of it from you.”
This was the admission the older one had wanted. They were all in very chafed and ugly temper.
“Don’t talk back to me, you little fool, or I’ll bat your brains out.”
The boy sprang at his brother like a cat, with a snarling cry. He bore him backward to the floor as if he were a child, laying him down gently and kneeling above him, because he had been instantly shocked by the fragility of his opponent and the ease of his advantage. He struggled with such mixed rage and shame as those who try quietly to endure the tantrum of a trying brat. As he knelt above Ben, holding his arms pinned, Luke fell heavily on his back, uttering excited cries, strangling him with one arm and cuffing awkwardly with the other.
“All right, B-B-Ben,” he chattered, “you grab his legs.”
A free scrimmage upon the floor followed, with such a clatter of upset scuttles, fire-irons, and chairs, that Eliza was brought at a fast gallop from the kitchen.
“Mercy!” she shrieked, as she reached the door. “They’ll kill him!”
But, although being subdued—in the proud language of an older South “defeated, sir, but never beaten”—Eugene was doing very well for his age, and continued to chill the spines of his enemies with strange noises in his larynx, even after they had all clambered panting to their feet.
“I f-f-f-fink he’s gone crazy,” said Luke. “He j-j-jumped on us without a word of warning.”
The hero replied to this with a drunken roll of the head, a furious dilation of the nostrils, and another horrible noise in his throat.
“What’s to become of us!” wept Eliza. “When brother strikes brother, it seems that the smash-up has come.” She lifted the padded arm-chair, and placed it on its legs again.
When he could speak, Eugene said quietly, to control the trembling of his voice:
“I’m sorry I jumped on you, Ben. You,” he said to the excited sailor, “
