said amazedly.

Johnson Boller leaned forward quickly.

"Stop right there, Anthony!" he hissed. "Don't answer him!"

"Why on earth shouldn't I answer him?" Anthony snapped.

"You keep out of it, young feller!" the red-faced one told Johnson
Boller, and one saw that his honest rage was rising fast. "He's gotter
let that kid alone!"

"Well, confound your impudence, sir!" Anthony began. "I----"

"None o' that stuff!" the total stranger said hotly. "You cut out
picking on the kid or I'll step on your face."

And here his redder-faced companion leaned forward and demanded thickly:

"Woddy do ter kid, Joe? Huh? Wozzer matter--huh? Wozzer trouble 'th
you--huh?"

Johnson Boller was on his feet and in the aisle, perturbed and still
able to see how the unexpected had been planned for his especial
benefit.

"This is where we get off, Anthony," he said briefly, "I could smell it
coming. Come along."

"Is there going to be a fight here?" the boy in the chair between asked,
with a quantity of eager excitement.

"If I know the signs, ten seconds hence this spot is going to look like
a detail of the Battle of the Marne," said Mr. Boller. "And you want to
get out of it quick or you'll be hurt, kid. You scoot right down that
way, the way you came, and get clear of the crowd before it starts."

He pointed. He waited. But the boy did not start.

Who, in the calmer afterward, shall explain just how these gunpowder
situations develop, grow instantaneously incandescent, and explode?

The atmosphere was one of physical battle; the red-faced gentlemen were
filled with alcoholic spirits; yet who shall say just why the red-faced
man, his friend stumbling against him, gained the impression that
Anthony Fry had struck him a coward's blow from behind? Or why, with a
roar of incoherent fury, he aimed a dreadful punch at Anthony himself,
standing there quite collected if somewhat paler?

That is what happened, although by no means all that happened. The
unfortunate spot came three seconds later when Anthony, side-stepping
the alcoholized jab, threw up his hands to fend off the jabber's whole
swaying person--threw them, all unwittingly, so that his right fist
settled squarely on a red nose, drawing therefrom a magic spurt of
blood!

After that, for a little, nothing was very clear. Three sets of fists
began to hammer in Anthony's general direction; three throats
shouted--and three hundred took up the shout.

Men came tumbling to