he continued: "I see trouble as soon as he
got on. They was plenty of empty seats on one side, but the first thing
I knew he was hanging on a strap on the crowded side insultin' a poor
little lady. He wasn't sayin' nuthin' but he was just hangin' over her
face, lookin' at her and grinnin' until she was ready to cry out for
shame."

"The brute!" snapped Mrs. O'Brien as she slopped down a big cup of
coffee.

"Did you throw him off?" Terence asked.

George took an exasperating time to swallow, then complained: "You
mustn't hurry me so. 'Tain't healthy to hurry when you eat."

Ellen O'Brien tossed her head disdainfully. "If that's all you've got to
say, Mr. Riley, I guess I'll be going."

Rosie turned on her big sister scornfully. "Aw, why don't you call him
Jarge? Ain't he been boarding with us a whole week now?" To show the
degree of intimacy she herself felt, Rosie slipped an arm about George's
neck.

Ellen sniffed audibly.

George had not been looking at the elder Miss O'Brien but, from the
haste with which now he finished his story, it was evident that he
wished her to hear it.

"When I see he was looking for trouble, I went right up to him and says:
'If you can't sit down and act ladylike, just get off this car.' And
then he looks down at me and grins like a jackass and says: 'Who do you
think you are?' 'Who do I think I am?' I says; 'I'm the conductor of
this car and my number's eight-twenty and, if I get any more jawin' from
you, I'll throw you off.' He'd make two of me in size but I could see
from the look of him he was nuthin' to be afraid of. So, when he grins
down at the little lady again and then drops his strap to turn clean
around to me and poke out his jaw, I up and gives him a good
chin-chopper."

George stopped as if this were the end and his auditors grumbled in
balked expectancy:

"Aw, go on, Jarge, tell us what you did."

"Well, if that's the end of your story, Mr. Riley, I'm going."

"The brute, insultin' a lady!"

It was Rosie who demanded in desperation: "But, Jarge, what is a
chin-chopper?"

"Chin-chopper? Why, don't you know what a chin-chopper is?" George
paused in his eating to explain. "A chin-chopper is when a big stiff
pokes out his jaw at you and then, before he knows what you're doing,
you up and push him one under the chin with the inside of your hand. It
tips him over just like a ninepin."

"Oh, Jarge, do you mean you knocked him down on the floor of the car?"
By this