When Dicky Perrott came running into Jago Row with the Bishop's watch in his pocket, another boy punched a fist at him, and at the time Dicky was at a loss to guess the cause—unless it were a simple caprice—but stayed neither to inquire nor to retaliate¹. The fact was that the Ranns and the Learys were coming out, fighting was in the air, and the small boy, meeting another a trifle smaller, punched on general principles. The Ranns and the Learys, ever at war or in guarded armistice², were the great rival families—the Montagues and the Capulets—of the old Jago. The Learys indeed, scarce pretended to rivalry—rather to factious³ opposition⁴. For the Ranns gloried in the style and title of the 'Royal Family,' and dominated the Jago; but there were mighty⁵ fighters, men and women, among the Learys, and when a combat arose it was a hard one and an animated⁶. The two families ramified throughout the Jago; and under the Rann standard, whether by kin⁷ or by custom, were the Gullens, the Fishers, the Spicers, and the Walshes; while in the Leary train came Dawsons, Greens, and Harnwells. So that near all the Jago was wont⁸ to be on one side or the other, and any of the Jago which was not, was apt to be the worse for it; for the Ranns drubbed all them that were not of their faction⁹ in the most thorough and most workmanlike manner, and the Learys held by the same practice; so that neutrality meant double drubbing. But when the Ranns and Learys combined, and the Old Jago issued forth¹⁰ in its entire might against Dove Lane, then the battle was one to go miles to see.  
This, however, was but a Rann and Leary fight; and it was but in its early stages when Dicky Perrott, emerging from Jerry Gullen's back-yard, made for Shoreditch High Street by way of the 'Posties'—the passage with posts at the end of Old Jago Street. His purpose was to snatch a handful of hay from some passing waggon¹¹, or of mixed fodder¹² from some unguarded nosebag, wherewith to reward the sympathy of Jerry Gullen's canary. But by the 'Posties,' at the Edge Lane corner, Tommy Rann, capless, and with a purple bump on his forehead, came flying into his arms, breathless, exultant¹³, a babbling¹⁴ braggart¹⁵. He had fought Johnny Leary and Joe Dawson, he said, one after the other, and pretty nigh broke Johnny Leary's blasted neck; and Joe's Dawson's big brother was after him now with a bleed'n' shovel¹⁶. So the two children ran on together, and sought the seclusion¹⁷ of their own back yard; where the story of Johnny Rann's prowess, with scowls¹⁸ and the pounding of imaginary foes¹⁹, and the story of the Bishop's watch, with suppressions and improvements, mingled²⁰ and contended in the thickening dusk. And Jerry Gullen's canary went forgotten and unrequited.
 
That night fighting was sporadic²¹ and desultory²² in the Jago. Bob the Bender was reported to have a smashed nose, and Sam Cash had his head bandaged at the hospital. At the Bag of Nails in Edge Lane, Snob²³ Spicer was knocked out of knowledge with a quart pot, and Cocko Harnwell's missis had a piece bitten off of one ear. As the night wore on, taunts²⁴ and defiances were bandied from window to door, and from door to window, between those who intended to begin fighting to-morrow; and shouts from divers²⁵ corners gave notice of isolated²⁶ scuffles. Once a succession of piercing screams seemed to betoken²⁷ that Sally Green had begun. There was a note in the screams of Sally Green's opposites which the Jago had learned to recognise. Sally Green, though of the weaker faction, was the female champion of the Old Jago: an eminence²⁸ won and kept by fighting tactics peculiar²⁹ to herself. For it was her way, reserving teeth and nails, to wrestle³⁰ closely with her antagonist³¹, throw her by a dexterous³² twist on her face, and fall on her, instantly seizing the victim's nape in her teeth, gnawing³³ and worrying. The sufferer's screams were audible afar, and beyond their invariable eccentricity³⁴ of quality—a quality a vaguely³⁵ suggestive of dire³⁶ surprise—they had mechanical persistence³⁷, a pump-like regularity³⁸, that distinguished³⁹ them, in the accustomed ear, from other screams.
 
Josh Perrott had not been home all the evening: probably the Bishop's watch was in course of transmutation into beer. Dicky, stiff and domestically inclined, nursed Looey and listened to the noises without till he fell asleep, in hopeful anticipation⁴⁰ of the morrow. For Tommy Rann had promised him half of a broken iron railing wherewith to fight the Learys.