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Outwardly, so far as the intermittent moonlight showed, Mr. Hoopdriver
was quietly but eagerly prepared to fight. But inwardly he was a chaos
of conflicting purposes. It was extraordinary how things happened. One
remark had trod so closely on the heels of another, that he had had the
greatest difficulty in following the development of the business.
He distinctly remembered himself walking across from one room to the
other,--a dignified, even an aristocratic figure, primed with considered
eloquence, intent upon a scathing remonstrance to these wretched yokels,
regarding their manners. Then incident had flickered into incident until
here he was out in a moonlit lane,--a slight, dark figure in a group
of larger, indistinct figures,--marching in a quiet, business-like way
towards some unknown horror at Buller's yard. Fists! It was astonishing.
It was terrible! In front of him was the pallid figure of Charles, and
he saw that the man in gaiters held Charles kindly but firmly by the
arm.
"
It's blasted rot," Charles was saying, "getting up a fight just for a
thing like that; all very well for 'im. 'E's got 'is 'olidays; 'e 'asn't
no blessed dinner to take up to-morrow night like I 'ave.--No need to
numb my arm, IS there?"
They went into Buller's yard through gates. There were sheds in Buller's
yard--sheds of mystery that the moonlight could not solve--a smell
of cows, and a pump stood out clear and black, throwing a clear black
shadow on the whitewashed wall. And here it was his face was to be
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