ment she would reach back with both hands and pull him over
her head very much as men doff a shirt. Likely as not, Chang came down
with his heels in the air, and at it they would go again. Presently she
was tripped, and fell with a violence that should have broken every bone
in her body, but before Chang-how could pursue his advantage she had
wheeled on her side, wound his queue halfway up her arm and had her knee
on his breast.

"Good for you, An--! I mean, aren't you ashamed of yourself? Stop! for
Heaven's sake, stop! You might kill him."

As well have spoken to the winds. And as they became more terribly in
earnest I began to scream for help: "Stop, Anarky! (Murder! murder!)--Here,
Chang, take the poker. (_Mu--u--u--r--_der!) Great Heaven! don't hit her
with it! Stop, Chang-how! (Mur--_d--e--r!_ Oh, mercy! somebody
come!)--Here, Anarky, take the pota- (Mur--_d--e--r--rr!_)--potato-masher
and don't kill (_M--u--r_--der!)--kill him with it, unless he kills you
first.--Oh, mercy! mercy! I don't know what else to give you all to keep
you from killing (Murder!)--killing each other with.--Anarky, you are
breaking his neck!--Here's a flatiron, Chang! (Murder! Fire! fire! fire!)"

This brought the neighbors and the neighbors' children, and their
neighbors and their neighbors' children, and finally a forlorn
policeman, who marched Anarky to the magistrate's office and left Chang
to do up his pigtail at leisure, and reflect how often he had sinned and
gone unwhipt of justice, and now, in the hour of peace and in the act of
duty, retribution had deliberately sought him out, and found him and
disposed of him as afore told.

It seems that Anarky went quietly enough to the magistrate, who gave her
the choice between going to jail and depositing five dollars as security
for her appearance next morning for examination. Not having five dollars
to deposit, she was allowed an hour in which to seek some one who would
go bail for her. At the end of that time she returned to the office
panting, exhausted, wiping the perspiration from her face with her blue
cotton apron.

"Who is going bail for you?" she was asked.

Calmly turning down the sleeves that had been rolled above her shining
black elbows, she replied with contempt, "I ain't been arter no bail: I
dun been home an' finish beatin' de lites outen dat yaller houn'. Dat
all de bail _I_ wants! Which ef ennybody's lookin' fur him, dey kin
fin' his pigtail, an' maybe a piece uv his