in the car in front
and behind us was crowded, but nobody could get in our section because
the fat lady held them at bay like Horatius held the bridge in the
brave days of old.

People would rush up to the car when it stopped, glance carelessly fore
and aft until their eyes rested on the vacant seats in our direction,
and then they would see the stout lady sitting there, as graceful as
the sunken ships which used to block the harbor at Port Arthur.

The people would look at the stout lady with no hope in their eyes, and
then, with a sigh, they would retire and wait for the next car.

No one was brave enough to climb the mountain which grew up between
them and the promised land.

After a while I began to get a toothache in my conscience.

"Peter," I said to myself in a hoarse whisper, "perhaps after all _you_
were the Hog because you moved over! After the lady had climbed over
you she would have kept on to the other end of the bench where now
there is nothing but a sullen space."

I began to insult myself.

"Peter," I exclaimed inwardly, "what do _you_ know about the etiquette
of the street car? According to the newspapers it is only a Man who
can be a Hog on the street cars, and since you are the original cause
of blockading the port when you moved over, _you_ must be the Hog!"

Then I got so mad at myself that I refused to talk to myself any
further.

The next day I was riding downtown on the end seat with my mind made up
to stay there and keep the harbor open for commerce.

"Never," I said to myself, "never will anyone become a human Merrimac
to bottle up the seating capacity of this particular bench while the
blood flows through these veins and the flag of freedom waves above me."

At the next corner a very thin little gentleman squeezed by me with a
look of reproach on his face the like of which I hope never to see
again, but I was Charles J. Glue and firm in the end seat.

Then a couple of Italy's sunny sons by the names of Microbeini and
Germicide crawled over me and kicked their initials on my knee-cap and
then sat down to enjoy a smoke of domestic rope which fell across my
nostrils and remained there in bitterness.

After I had been stepped on, sat on, clawed at and scowled at for
twenty minutes, I began to discuss myself to myself.

"Peter," I whispered, "do you really think that the general public
appreciates your efforts to keep the Harbor open?"

And then myself replied to myself with a