XLII. A FIGHT AT LAST.

“Hish! Swish! there goes the Beetle!” cried an impudent voice in my ear.

I turned round quickly, and grinding my teeth, asked: “Who said that?”

Brideau, nicknamed “Cock of the Walk,” who was walking just behind me, was so surprised at the expression of my face, that he retreated a step or two.

“Was it you?” I demanded.

He did not dare to deny it before all the other boys, lest they should think that he was afraid of me. So he replied in an insolent tone of voice, “Yes it was me!”

I threw myself upon him with clenched fists and my eyes shut. I dashed myself against something, and something was dashed against me. I felt a violent shock. My left eye suddenly became extremely painful, felt very heavy, and seemed to see ten thousand lighted candles at once. It seemed as though my knees gave way, that I staggered two or three steps backwards and leant against something hard. I soon opened my eyes, or rather the right eye,—for the left was still tightly closed—and the ten thousand candles had turned into a number of bright circles which twisted about in the dark. I discovered that I had backed into a grocer’s shop, between a barrel of herrings and a case of dried figs. Everyone looked at me with surprise. Some of my schoolfellows cried out “Bravo!” (most likely in derision) and others asked me, “if it hurt me much.”

“Not at all,” I answered; I was so excited, that I very nearly said, “on the contrary I feel the better for it!” Strange to say, nobody laughed at me. One boy kindly bathed my eye with cold water. To tell the truth I was very much surprised to find that a blow from my fist struck just by chance, in that way, should seem to change so entirely the conduct of my schoolfellows towards me.

Casting my sound eye round me, I tried to find out what had become of Brideau. I expected to see him come rushing at me; imagine my astonishment at seeing him going off with a crest-fallen and discomfited air. He had had one of his eyes much damaged, and his nose was bleeding into the bargain. It seemed that I had knocked him down. Someone said to me: “You’ve beaten him!” And, then only, I discovered to my intense surprise, that I was the conqueror.

Fancy! me the conqueror! Could it be so? It seemed so strange that I could scarcely believe it! A conqueror, and gloriously wounded. I smiled involuntarily as I bathed my eye, which now saw black circles revolving in the light, and which seemed to me to be tremendously swelled! However I did not mind a black eye or anything else: I had fought in a good cause, and had conquered.