“No” said the other. “I tumbled in trying to dodge this lady. The ice thought my face ought to be scratched, because I had been scratching its face without mercy. My wits were knocked out of me; but they are tired of secession, and pleading to be let in again.”
“Keep some of them out for our sake! We must have you at our commonplace level. Well, Miss Mary, I suppose this is the first time you have had the sensation of breaking a man’s head. You generally hit lower.” Peter tapped his heart.
“I’m all right now, thanks to my surgeon,” says Wade. “Give me a lift, Peter.” He pulled up and clung to his friend.
“You’re the vine and I’m the lamp-post,” Skerrett said. “Mary, do you know what a pocket-pistol is?”
“I have seen such weapons concealed about the persons of modern warriors.”
“There’s one in my overcoat-pocket, with a cup at the but and a cork at the muzzle. Skate off now, like an angel, and get it. Bring Fanny, too. She is restorative.”
“Are you alive enough to admire that, Dick?” he continued, as she skimmed away.
“It would put a soul under the ribs of Death.”
“I venerate that young woman,” says Peter. “You see what a beauty she is, and just as unspoiled as this ice. Unspoiled beauties are rarer than rocs’ eggs.”
“She has a singularly true face,” Wade replied, “
