Over My Dead Body

I trotted around and got between him and the door, faced him, and said urgently, "Pick it up!" I knew at the time that it was childish, but in the first place the impulse to make some kind of alteration on the supercilious look of his face was absolutely irresistible, and in the second place I had been permanently impressed by what I had been reading in the papers about certain things being done by certain people in certain parts of the world. I did give him a second chance by telling him again to pick it up, but he kept right on coming, apparently expecting me to melt into a grease spot. I said calmly, "Look out, here it is," and put it there. I didn't aim for the chin because there wasn't any and I didn't want to pay a hospital bill. Instead, I took his left eye with a right hook and most of me behind it.

The door connecting with the front room opened a crack and Fred Durkin stuck his head in.

"Hey, need any help?"

"Come on in. What do you think?"

He walked over and stood looking down at Faber. "I'll be darned. How many times did you hit him?"

"Once."

"I'll be darned. And you with a name like Goodwin. Sometimes I'm inclined to think-was your mother ever in Ireland?"

"Go suck an orange. Stand back and give him room."

Faber got up by degrees. First on his hands, then on his hands and knees, and then slow but sure on up. He turned slowly, and looked at me, and I looked away on account of the expression in his eyes. It embarrassed me so much it damn near scared me, to see such an expression in the eyes of a man who had merely been knocked down. Naturally, it had been my intention to request him to pick the book up when he got upright again, but I didn't do it. When he got under headway towards the door I stepped aside and let him go, and asked Fred to go to the hall and let him out. I picked up the book and put it away and sat down and rubbed my knuckles and worked my Fingers open and shut a few times, and then phoned Wolfe a communiquй. All he did was grunt.