t, pushing at the sleeve of his right arm. "Come here," he
bade, and the quiet of his tone was more terrible to the boy than if he
had shouted.

Johnnie did not obey. He could not. His legs would not move. His feet
were rooted. "Oh, Mister Barber," he pleaded. "Oh, don't lick me! I
won't never do it again! Oh, don't! Oh, don't! Oh, don't!"

"Come here." The great arm was bared now. The voice was lower than
before. In one bulging, bloodshot eye that cast showed and went, then
showed again. "Do what I say--come here."

"Oh! oh! oh!" Again Johnnie was gasping.

Barber burst out at him like some fierce storm. "Don't y' try t' fool
_me_!" he cried. He came on. When he was within reach, that great,
naked, iron arm shot out, seized the boy at his middle, swept him up
from the floor with a violence that sent the tea leaves flying from the
yellow hair, held him for a second in mid-air, the small body slouched
in the big clothes as in the bottom of a sack, then shook him till he
fairly rattled, like a pea in a pod.

In a terror that was uncontrollable, Johnnie began to thrash about and
scream. And as Barber half dropped, half flung him to the floor, old
Grandpa roused, and came round in his chair, tap-tapping with the cane.
"Captain!" he shrilled. "The right's falling back! They're giving us
grape and canister!--Oh, our boys! Our poor boys!" Frightened by any
trouble, his mind always reverted to old scenes of battle, when his
broken sentences were like a halting, squeaky record in some talking
machine that is out of order and running down.

As Grandpa rolled near to Johnnie, the latter caught at a wheel, seeking
help, in his extremity, of the helpless, and thrust his hands through
the spokes to lock them. So that as Barber once more bent and dragged at
him, the chair and the old man followed about the kitchen.

"Let go!" commanded the longshoreman. He tried to shake Johnnie free of
the wheel.

But Johnnie held on, and his cries redoubled. The kitchen was in a
tumult now, for old Grandpa was also weeping--not only in fear for
Johnnie, but in terror lest he himself be overturned. And Big Tom was
alternately cursing and ordering.

The trouble was heard elsewhere. To right and left there was movement,
and the sound of windows being raised. Voices called out questioningly.
Some one pounded on a wall in protest. And overhead Mrs. Kukor left her
chair and went rocking across her floor.

Muttering a savage exclamation, Big To