dancing the ring. He strode to our
table. "There's the winner," said Gadsden, quickly pointing to the
Manna Exhibit. "What!" shouted Smith again; "and they quit me for that
hammer-headed son-of-a-gun?" He whirled around. The men stood ready, and
the women fled shrieking and cowering to their infants in the booths.
"Gentlemen! Gentlemen!" cried Gadsden, "don't hurt him! Look here!" And
from the drawer he displayed Shot-gun's weapon. They understood in a
second, and calmly watched the enraged and disappointed Shot-gun. But he
was a man. He saw how he had frightened the women, and he stood in the
middle of the floor with eyes that did not at all resemble Aqua Marine's
at present. "I'm all right now, boys," he said. "I hope I've harmed no
one. Ladies, will you try and forget about me making such a break? It
got ahead of me, I guess; for I had promised the little woman--" He
stopped himself; and then his eye fell upon the Manna Department. "I
guess I don't like one thing much now. I'm not after prizes. I'd not
accept one from a gold-bug-combine-trust that comes sneaking around
stuffing wholesale concoctions into our children's systems. My twins are
not manna-fed. My twins are raised as nature intended. Perhaps if they
were swelled out with trash that acts like baking-powder, they would
have a medal too--for I notice he has made you vote his way pretty often
this afternoon." I saw the agent at the end of the room look very queer.
"That's so!" said several. "I think I'll clear out his boxes," said
Shot-gun, with rising joy. "I feel like I've got to do something before
I go home. Come on, judge!" He swooped towards the manna with a yell,
and the men swooped with him, and Gadsden and I were swooped with them.
Again the women shrieked. But Mrs. Brewton stood out before the boxes
with her curl and her chintz.

"Mr. Smith," said she, "you are not going to do anything like that. You
are going to behave yourself like the gentleman you are, and not like
the wild beast that's inside you." Never in his life before, probably,
had Shot-gun been addressed in such a manner, and he too became
hypnotized, fixing his blue eyes upon the strange lady. "I do not
believe in patent foods for children," said Mrs. Brewton. "We agree
on that, Mr. Smith, and I am a grandmother, and I attend to what my
grandchildren eat. But this highly adroit young man has done you no
harm. If he has the prizes, whose doing is that, please? And who paid
for them? Will