I stood aghast directly after, beside a pile of baskets, and watch a quarrel that had just begun a dozen yards away, where a big red-faced man was holding a very fluffy white hat in his hand and brushing it with his arm, and bandying angry words with a rough-looking young market porter, who, with a great flat basket under one arm and his other through a knot, was speaking menacingly-- "Don't you hit me again." "Yes, I will, and knock your ugly head off if you do that again," said the man with the white hat.
"Do what again ?" "Do what again!--why, throw rotten cabbages at my hat." "I didn't." "Yes, you did." "No, I didn't." "Why, half-a-dozen here saw you do it.

You've got hold of the wrong man, my lad, for larks; so now, then!" I saw him stick on his white hat all on one side, and he looked very fierce and severe; while I felt covered with shame and confusion, for I knew that it was my cabbage that had done the mischief.
_Whop_! That was another right in my ear, and I turned angrily upon Shock, forgetting all about the man with the white hat and the half-conceived idea of going up to him and telling the truth.

But there was Shock staring about him from a dozen feet above my head, and singing softly, "I've been to Paris and I've been to Dover;" and the cabbage had struck me on the other side, so that unless Shock had learned how to project decayed cabbage after the fashion of boomerangs it could not have been he.
There was a group of bare-legged boys, though, away to my left--a set of ragged objects who might have passed for Shock's brothers and cousins, only that they were thin and unwholesomely pale, and extremely dirty, while although Shock was often quite as dirty, his seemed to be the wholesome dirt of country earth, and he looked brown, and healthy, and strong.
Then I became aware of the presence of Ike, who said with a grim smile: "Don't you heed them, my lad.

I see one of 'em chuck it and then turn round.

Wait a bit and I shall get a charnce, and I'll drar my whip round one of 'em in a way as'll be a startler." A quick busy-looking man came bustling up just then, had a chat with Ike, and hurried off, carrying away my companion; and as soon as he had gone a bruised potato struck the side of the cart, and as I changed my position a damaged stump of a cauliflower struck Basket on the flank, making him start and give himself a shake that rattled all the chains of the harness before resettling down to the task of picking the corn out of the chaff in his well-filled nose-bag.
My first idea was to call Shock down from where he was see-sawing his legs to and fro till his feet looked like two tilt-hammers beating a piece of iron, and then with his help attack the young vagabonds who were amusing themselves by making me a target for all the market refuse they could find.
Second thoughts are said to be best, and I had sense enough to know that nothing would be gained by a struggle with the young roughs.