air, narrowly missing Betty's head.

"Come on, we're going to get out of this," said Bob determinedly,
rising from his seat. "Those chaps once start rough-housing, no
telling where they'll bring up. We want to escape the dishes, and
besides we haven't any too much time to make our train."

He had paid for their food when he ordered it, so there was nothing
to hinder their going out. Bob started for the door, supposing that
Betty was following. But she had seen something that roused her
anger afresh.

The poor Celestial was essaying an ineffectual protest at the
treatment of his slippers, when a man opposite him reached over and
snatched his plate of food.

"China for Chinamen!" he shouted, and with that clapped the plate
down on the unfortunate victim's head with so much force that it
shivered into several pieces.

Betty could never bear to see a person or an animal unfairly
treated, and when, as now, the odds were all against one, she became
a veritable little fury. As Bob had once said in a mixture of
admiration and despair she wasn't old enough to be afraid of anything
or anybody.

"How dare you treat him like that!" she cried, running to the table
where the Chinaman sat in a daze. "You ought to be arrested! If you
must torment some one, why don't you get somebody who can fight
back?"

The men stared at her open-mouthed, bewildered by her unexpected
championship of their bait. Then a great, coarse, blowzy-faced man,
with enormous grease spots on his clothes, winked at the others.

"My eye, we've a visitor," he drawled. "Sit down, my dear, and John
Chinaman shall bring you chop suey for lunch."

Betty drew back as he put out a huge hand.

"You leave her alone!" Bob had come after Betty and stood glaring at
the greasy individual. "Anybody who'll treat a foreigner as you've
treated that Chinaman isn't fit to speak to a girl!"

A concerted growl greeted this statement.

"If you're looking for a fight," snarled a younger man, "you've
struck the right place. Come on, or eat your words."

Now Bob was no coward, but there were five men arrayed against him
with a probable sixth in the form of the counter-man who was watching
the turn of affairs with great interest from the safe vantage-point
of his high counter. It was too much to expect that any men who had
dealt with a defenceless and handicapped stranger as these had dealt
with the Chinaman would fight fair. Besides, Bob was further hampered
by the terrif