One dreadful day, when he had been nagged to fisticuffs with Wesley, whose dudish dignity exacted a certain restraint with the hot-headed youngster, Elisha Boone, behind the thick hedge, heard on the highway outside his grounds this outrageous anathema: "You're no more than a thief, Wes Boone; your father stole all he's got.

Intense indeed must be the affection which can thus drive you to fisticuffs!

One of them jeered him for his black eye, which was swelled by the potato, and another called him a cruel name, on which he and Harry fell to fisticuffs.

"It occurred to me to take him and his wife to dine at a restaurant this evening, before going to a certain first performance where there will probably be some fisticuffs and a rumpus to-night.

After that, they engaged in fisticuffs; and for a whole week the district did nothing but talk about the flight of one of the Chantebled lads with the girl of the mill, to the despair of Mathieu and Marianne, the latter of whom in particular grieved over the sorry business.

I am not likely to desire close communion, except in the way of fisticuffs, with a boy who has been spying upon me all day, or who has very likely "reported" me as having committed divers venial offenses.

In turn he sent four of them reeling with vigorous fisticuffs.

I gave him a sharp retort; he sent back as good as I brought, till at last we came to fisticuffs.

V. retaliate, retort, turn upon; pay, pay off, pay back; pay in one's own coin, pay in the same coin; cap; reciprocate &c 148; turn the tables upon, return the compliment; give a quid pro quo &c n., give as much as one takes, give as good as one gets; give and take, exchange fisticuffs; be quits, be even with; pay off old scores. serve one right, be hoist on one's own petard, throw a stone in one's own garden, catch a Tartar.

"I don't want to indulge Sunwich with the spectacle of two middle-aged ship-masters at fisticuffs, but that's what'll happen if you touch my boy.

"I don't want to indulge Sunwich with the spectacle of two middle-aged ship-masters at fisticuffs, but that's what'll happen if you touch my boy.

We had a turn at fisticuffs which resulted in my favor.

"Now, no fisticuffs here," warned the sheriff, "my only duty now is to preserve order and arrest Roy Prescott on a charge of grand larceny.

"Yes, ma'am, I have been fighting, and for my life too, which is a very different thing from a round of fisticuffs with your neighbour," growled Stee Jenkin in a shaken tone, and the hand with which he tried to lift the steaming coffee to his lips shook so violently that he spilled the hot liquid on his clothes.

The fisticuffs between Messrs. Bynum and Wise occurred at the previous session of Congress.

On the streets native youths emulated the combatants, and at every corner boys were at fisticuffs.

Now even at his best the laughing Mr. Hyde was no hand at rough-and-tumble, it being his opinion that fisticuffs was a peculiarly indecisive and exhausting way of settling a dispute.

With the best intentions in the world I bring two of my friends together and they fall instantly into verbal fisticuffs.

Girls linked by the half-dozen arm-in-arm leap along with shrieks like grotesque maenads; a rougher horseplay finds favour among the youths, occasionally leading to fisticuffs.

The most characteristic and the best deal, however, with the science of fisticuffs.

The least objection to his views he regarded as a personal insult; he would transfer debates in session out into the streets and settle them there with threats and fisticuffs.

" Several people began to discuss the inaction of the fleet off Charleston bar during the bombardment; the navy was freely denounced and defended, and Berkley, pleased that he had started a row, listened complacently, inserting a word here and there calculated to incite several prominent citizens to fisticuffs.

But when fisticuffs appeared imminent in mid-stream, out of somewhat tardy consideration for Ailsa he set free the dove of peace.

Tom would have been glad to challenge him to a bout at fisticuffs, for he was confident he could vanquish him in short order.

But an occasional bout of fisticuffs and a good deal of drinking and gambling, were about the worst sins of the gold-seekers.