himself for what he had done to the attorney, and saw
the attorney step forward to quell the Colonel's hot words. The Colonel
put up both his hands and shouted, and some from the crowd, grasping
the attorney about the waist and arms, as if the feared he was about to
attack the older man, hurried him away, speaking soothing words to him.

The Colonel rioted on. Nothing could have stopped him. He pulled a copy
of the TIMES from his pocket and slapped it with his hand as he abused
the attorney for having given T. J. Jones the facts of the article.

He lit it be plainly known, in his anger, that the article called him
a giver of graft. The crowd stood silent, as crowds stand about some
drunken man, for the Colonel was drunk with wrath, and wordy with it,
talking to himself as drunken men do. He finished, and the crowd opened
a passage through itself to let him pass, and Skinner, who, in apron and
bare arms, had viewed his rival's wrath from a safe place on the edge of
the group, backed away. The Colonel, mumbling, caught sight of him, and
with one swift motion of the arm grasped him by the shirt band.

"You!" he shouted, pulling the shirt band until Skinner grew purple
in the face. "You! You done it! Why couldn't you buy them
fire-extinguishers like a man? You made me buy up that Dutchman. I
wouldn't 'a' had to do it but for you."

He gave the choking butcher an extra shake, and raised his hand to
strike him, but again the crowd interfered, and seized the Colonel, and
hurried him away.

The butcher stood stupidly and rubbed his neck, waiting for the wits
that had been choked out of him to return, and far down the street Mayor
Stitz, hearing a noise, came out on his front platform and looked up the
street. It appeared to him that something was going on, and sticking his
awl in the door of his car, he walked blandly up the street to where the
remnant of the crowd formed a half circle around the butcher. He crowded
through, saying, "Look out, the mayor is coming. Stand one side yet for
the mayor!"

The butcher looked and saw before him the round, innocent face of the
mayor, topped by the mayor's round bald head. He raised his large, fat
hand, and in vent for all his injured feelings brought it down, smack!
On the smooth bald spot.

"Ouw-etch!" said the mayor.

He was surprised. He backed away and rubbed the top of his head,
and what he said next was a rapid string of real, genuine German;
exclamations, compound tense