We will go further shoulder to shoulder than nose to nose.

From Alfred’s journal

Two jays went at each other on the fence rail this morning, beak to beak, for the better part of an hour, over a crust neither one ever picked up. I watched the whole thing from the gutter and took their side, both of them, by turns. For years I thought an argument was a kind of work, that if you hammered at a thing face to face long enough it would come apart and show you its middle. Then the wind shifted and they both lifted off the rail in the same second, in the same direction, and got where they were going. We will go further shoulder to shoulder than nose to nose, I wrote, and then sat a while, because geese do it on purpose and jays did it by accident and I do not know yet which one I am. The crust is still on the rail.