ozen were trying to do something, but having no directing head or hand,
accomplishing little. It looked as though nothing but the bursting
asunder of that ramshackle building would liberate its human charge, for
even those who, battered, bleeding, and suffocated, would gladly have
escaped into outer air, were packed in, sardine-like, and incapable of
self-extrication. To the appeal of the conductor that he should regain
control of his men and prevent destruction of property, the luckless
Muffet plaintively responded, "My God, what can I do? I've done my best,
and nobody else has done anything. The only officer I've got has
deserted me."

But even as he spoke, accompanied by a jutting and hissing and spraying,
by outburst of yells, jeers, maudlin laughter, there came sudden
vomiting forth of drenched and dripping forms. Over the heads of the
throng within, into the hot faces of the throng without the double door,
hurling them back from the battered entrance in sudden panic, a powerful
stream of cold water, shooting from unseen nozzle, broke up and
demoralized the drunken barrier. Skilfully directed into the heart of
the crowd at the door-way, then into the ruck and tumult within, it
first cleared a passage, then, torrent-like, swept away into it,
tumbling and swearing and cursing, but going, the last able-bodied
invader of saloon sanctity, bestowing upon its foul interior the first
thorough washing it ever received, driving the despoilers before it with
the force of a battering-ram, yet even then, unsatisfied, following up
its victory. With perhaps half a dozen soldiers and as many mill-hands
hauling on the slack of the hose behind him, through a north window came
the tall, slender, serious-faced person of Mr. Davies, a laughing young
lance corporal manning the butt with him, and, aiming low and driving
discipline and punishment at the rate of a gallon a second, _a
posteriori_, at the now drenched and scattering mob, and shouting, "Back
to the train! Back to your seats!" never did they cease their deluge
until the last laggard capable of locomotion took shelter within the
cars. Muffet, recoiling in time to escape both rush of men and muddy
water, stood shouting confirmatory orders from the platform the while.
Many a mob will face the shock of charging steel and hissing lead that
melts away before ridicule and squirted water. The _emeute_ was ended
long before the police arrived, and Muffet had regained some measure of
hi