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hurt him excruciatingly or make him violently sick, how to hit or kick
vital," how to use glass in one's garments as a club and to spread red
"
ruin with various domestic implements, how to anticipate and demolish
your adversary's intentions in other directions; all the pleasant
devices, in fact, that had grown up among the disinherited of the great
cities of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, were spread out by a
gifted exponent for Denton's learning. Blunt's bashfulness fell from
him as the instruction proceeded, and he developed a certain expert
dignity, a quality of fatherly consideration. He treated Denton with the
utmost consideration, only "flicking him up a bit" now and then, to keep
the interest hot, and roaring with laughter at a happy fluke of Denton's
that covered his mouth with blood.
"
I'm always keerless of my mouth," said Blunt, admitting a weakness.
Always. It don't seem to matter, like, just getting bashed in the
"
mouth--not if your chin's all right. Tastin' blood does me good. Always.
But I better not 'it you again."
Denton went home, to fall asleep exhausted and wake in the small hours
with aching limbs and all his bruises tingling. Was it worth while that
he should go on living? He listened to Elizabeth's breathing, and
remembering that he must have awaked her the previous night, he lay very
still. He was sick with infinite disgust at the new conditions of his
life. He hated it all, hated even the genial savage who had protected
him so generously. The monstrous fraud of civilisation glared stark
before his eyes; he saw it as a vast lunatic growth, producing a
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