Australian Tales - Setis

unknown assailant, like a kangaroo dog attacking a terrier, and the little
doctor was hors de combat in an instant, being unable to stand against
the resistless force of his tall sinewy antagonist. With a crash, which
nearly shook the house down, the two combatants fell to the floor, and
there they lay rolling about, pommelling each other without mercy; and
anathematising in their own peculiar style, until everybody in the house
was aroused by the extraordinary riot, and jarring medley of epithets.
In the bedroom beneath the combatants lay Monsieur and Madam
Blowitt, the landlord and his lady, quietly enjoying their first nap; until
the grand crash just described, which knocked down half the plaster of
the ceiling on to their bed, which soon awakened them. Monsieur Blowitt
hastily scrambled from beneath the debris of fallen mortar, and with a
revolver in one hand, and a bedroom lantern in the other, he rushed up
stairs to the back attic, with mischief in his flashing eyes, and murder in
his violent gesticulation.
“Morbleu! qu'est ce que c'est donc!” roared the infuriate Frenchman.
“Vat you kick up dis von great big row, you beggers! Vat for you knock
my house down, eh? Morbleu! Vat for you do it: vill you tell me dat? I
vill shoot you dead, and kill you both vid dis fusil.”
A scene of confusion and uproar ensued, equalled only by a sea fight
among a forecastle full of tipsy sailors. Fortunately there were no caps on
the revolver, or it is probable murder would have been committed.
Monsieur Blowitt soon perceived that there was a stranger in the room;
when he, without any formality, allied himself to the doctor, and poor
McSkilly got a woeful beating between them. In vain did he try to
explain the cause of his nocturnal intrusion, and beg for mercy or fair
play; they evidently mistook him for a burglar, and although he warmly
appealed to his trunk on the roof, to attest his honest intentions, and
emphatically asked them, “if they ever kenned a thief to tak his box
o'claes wi him, when he broke intil a hoose?” his furious assailants
disregarded all his appeals, and would not listen to his reasoning, nor
look out of the window to investigate his box, but dragged him down
stairs, and handed him over to the policemen, whom the uproar had
attracted to the spot. Followed by the usual noisy street rabble, the
bruised and bleeding dentist was escorted to the station house, vainly
protesting all the way there against the illegal seizure of his person, and
imploring somebody to look after his trunk.
I must leave Mr. McSkilly to his ruminations in the lock-up, (and his
self-congratulations on his escape from the “deil himsel,”) and return to
Mrs. Lemonpip. I would here remark, that these thrilling incidents
occurred rather quicker than I have been able to record them; for they
occupied but little more than three hours, from the first outbreak to the
dénouement.
Mrs. Lemonpip soon recovered from her swoon, and after borrowing a