I ask ye!' he addressed the ring about him, to put his adversary entirely in the wrong before provoking the act of war.

And then, as one intending gently to remonstrate, he was on the point of stretching out his finger to the shoulder of Mr.Malkin, when Redworth seized his arm, saying: 'I 'm your man: me first: you're due to me.' Mr.Sullivan Smith beheld the vanishing of his foe in a cloud of faces.
Now was he wroth on patently reasonable grounds.

He threatened Saxondom.
Man up, man down, he challenged the race of short-legged, thickset, wooden-gated curmudgeons: and let it be pugilism if their white livers shivered at the notion of powder and ball.

Redworth, in the struggle to haul him away, received a blow from him.

'And you've got it! you would have it!' roared the Celt.
'Excuse yourself to the company for a misdirected effort,' Redworth said; and he observed generally: 'No Irish gentleman strikes a blow in good company.' 'But that's true as Writ! And I offer excuses--if you'll come along with me and a couple of friends.