That sort of put it up to our national pride—­there was six or seven American fishermen in the place—­and we waded in, and the French man-of-war’s men, they waded in, and it was one fine battle for maybe ten minutes, with nothing in the way of empty bottles, or full ones either, being overlooked.  And when we couldn’t reach any more chairs or table legs we pulled off our sea boots, and, believe me, a big red jack with a three-quarter-inch sole and an inch and a half of heel—­you grab a sea boot o’ that size—­it don’t weigh more than four pounds or so—­you grab it by the ears and get a full healthy swing on it and let it hit a man anywhere above the water-line, and he won’t mistake it for any sofa cushion.

It was a fine fight, and I think we’d ‘a’ won out only for the re-enforcements from outside.  A liberty party of French man-of-war’s men come first, and then the police lads with the red trousers and the swords, and out we went into the street.

And when they got us out they locked the doors and barred the windows.

While I was pulling on my red jacks again, out under the lamp, on the corner of the street, up comes Sam and Archie.  “Say, Alec,” begins Sam, “but you cert’nly laid ’em out with your sea boot.”

I thought Sam and Archie would be pretty well smashed up, but there wasn’t a mark on ’em except a couple of lumps behind their ears.

“Not us,” explained Sam.  “Nothin’ happened to us except bein’ stepped on a few dozen times.  But did y’ land the rest o’ the Aurora’s crew, Alec?”

“I don’t know.  I swung for ’em, Sam.”

“You got ’em all right, and that’ll put it out o’ their heads to bother with the Aurora to-night, though”—­he cocked up an ear to the whistle of a rising breeze—­“it begins to feel like they wouldn’t ‘a’ gone out anyway—­it’s breezing up so.”

“Where’s she layin’?”

“Off the end o’ the big dock.  An’ if it keeps on breezin’ they won’t be goin’ out in the mornin’ either.  A bad time anyway to put out on a cruise—­Christmas Day.  But what d’y’ say, Alec, if we take a look around the place?”

We’d got a pretty good start for Christmas Eve, and around Saint Pierre we went, Sam and Archie and four men of the Lucy Foster’s crew who’d been in the mix-up.  They were ready to tear things up, but there wasn’t much to tear up, because everybody heard us coming, and whenever we’d get to a place, we’d find the doors locked and the windows barred.  The only place not locked that night was the little cathedral, and by and by, when we found there was no place else to go, we all went in there.

It was a midnight mass being celebrated, and it was the sound of the choir voices coming from there that got us, and, Catholics or no, no matter, we all went in and heard mass, too, and when we came out, not feeling like trouble any more, we all went down to old Antone’s and turned in.