hirty yards, when I saw him throw up his
hand"----

Foster in a low voice was telling something to the Professor and two or
three others, which made them whoop with uncontrollable merriment, when
the roaring voice of big Sam Walters was heard outside, and a moment
later he rolled into the room, filling it with his noise. Lottridge, the
watchmaker, and Erlberg, the German baker, came in with him.

"_Hello_, hello, _hello_! All here, are yeh?"

"All here waiting for you--and the turnkey," said Foster.

"Well, here I am. Always on hand, like a sore thumb in huskin' season.
What's goin' on here? A game, hey? Hello, Gordon, it's you, is it?
Colonel, I owe you several for last night. But what the devil yo' got
your cap on fur, Colonel? Ain't it warm enough here for yeh?"

The desperate Colonel, who had snatched up his cap when he heard Walters
coming, grinned painfully, pulling his straggly red and white beard
nervously. The strain was beginning to tell on his iron nerves. He
removed the cap, and with a few muttered words went back to the game,
but there was a dangerous gleam in his fishy blue eyes, and the grizzled
tufts of red hair above his eyes lowered threateningly. A man who is
getting swamped in a game of checkers is not in a mood to bear
pleasantly any remarks on his bald head.

"Oh! don't take it off, Colonel," went on his tormentor, hospitably.
"When a man gets as old as you are, he's privileged to wear his cap. I
wonder if any of you fellers have noticed how the Colonel is shedding
his hair."

The old man leaped up, scattering the men on the checkerboard, which
flew up and struck Squire Gordon in the face, knocking him off his
stool. The old Colonel was ashy pale, and his eyes glared out from under
his huge brow like sapphires lit by flame. His spare form, clothed in a
seedy Prince Albert frock, towered with a singular dignity. His features
worked convulsively a moment, then he burst forth like the explosion of
a safety valve:

"Shuttup, damyeh!"

And then the crowd whooped, roared and rolled on the counters and
barrels, and roared and whooped again. They stamped and yelled, and ran
around like fiends, kicking the boxes and banging the coal scuttle in a
perfect pandemonium of mirth, leaving the old man standing there
helpless in his wrath, mad enough to shoot. Steve was just preparing to
seize the old man from behind, when Squire Gordon, struggling to his
feet among the spittoons, cried out, in the voice