ars in his foolish eyes.
He bent over Amidon's face, which grinned up at him cautiously
through the lather.

"Let him pay me them milk-tickets, then, if he's all right," Tappan
said, viciously.

"He will when he's disembarrassed and his adventures are on a
dividend-paying adipoise," said the barber, in a tearful voice.

"I think he is all right," said the druggist.

Then little Willy Eddy added his pipe. He had been covertly smoothing
out Tappan's crumpled newspaper. "He's real nice-spoken," said he. "I
guess he will come right in time."

Tappan turned on him and snatched back his newspaper. "Here, I ain't
done with that," he said; "I've got to take it home to my wife." Then
he added, "For God's sake, you little fool, he ain't been swipin'
anything from you, has he?"

Then the barber arose to the situation. He advanced, razor in hand.
He strode up to the milkman and stood dramatically before him, arm
raised and head thrown back. "Now, look at here," he proclaimed, in a
high falsetto, "I ain't agoin' to hear no asparagusment of my
friends, not here in this tonsorial parlor. No, sir!" There was
something at once touching, noble, and absurd about the
demonstration. The others chuckled, then sobered, and watched.

Tappan stared at him a second incredulously. Then he grinned, showing
his teeth like a dog.

"Lord! then that jailbird is one of your friends, is he?" he said. He
had just lit his pipe. He puffed at it, and deliberately blew the
smoke into the little barber's face.

Flynn bent over towards him with a sudden motion, and his mild,
consequential face in the cloud of smoke changed into something
terrible, from its very absurdity. His blue eyes glittered greenly;
he lifted the razor and cut the air with it close to the other man's
face. Tappan heard the hiss of it, and drew back involuntarily, his
expression changing.

"What the devil are you up to?" he growled, with wary eyes on the
other's face.

The barber continued to hold the razor like a bayonet in rest, fixed
within an inch of the other's nose. "I'm up to kickin' you out of my
parlor if you don't stop speakin' individuously disregardin' my
friends," said he, with an emphasis which was ridiculous and yet
impressive. The other men chuckled again, then grew grave.

"Come back here and finish up my job, John," Amidon called out; yet
he watched him warily.

"Here, put up that razor!" the postmaster called out.

"I'll put it up when you stop speaki