ead barber--stood up to read the minutes of the
preceding regular session, and having read them sat down again. A
friendly and flattering bustle of anticipation filled the body of the
hall as Doctor Duvall rose and moved one pace forward and--raising a
hand for silence--began to speak. But he had no more than begun, had
progressed no farther than part way of his first smoothly launched
sentence, when he was made to break off by an unseemly interruption at
the rear. The honorary grand inner guard on duty at the far street door,
after a brief and unsuccessful struggle with unseen forces, was observed
to be shoved violently aside from his post. Bursting in together there
entered two strangers--a tall yellow woman and a short black man, and
both of them of a most grim and determined aspect. He moved fast, this
man, but even so his companion moved faster still. She was three paces
ahead of him when, bulging impetuously past those who sprang into the
center aisle as though to halt her onward rush--all others present being
likewise up on their feet--she came to a halt near the middle of the
hall and, glaring about her defiantly, just double-dog-dared any present
to lay so much as the weight of one detaining finger upon her. There was
something about her calculated to daunt the most willing of volunteer
opponents, and so while those at a safe distance demanded the ejection
of the intruders, those nearer her hesitated.

"Th'ow me out?" she whooped, echoing the words of outraged and startled
members of the Shining Star. "I'd lak to see de one dat's gwine try it!
An' 'fo' anybody talk 'bout th'owin' out lettum heah me whilst I sez my
say!"

Towering until she seemed to increase in stature by inches, she aimed a
long and bony finger dead ahead.

"Ax dat slinky yaller man up yonder on dat flatfo'm ef he gwine give de
order to th'ow me out!" she clarioned in a voice which rose to a
compelling shriek. "But fust off ax him whut he meant--marryin' me in
Mobile, Alabama, an' den runnin' 'way frum his lawful wedded wife under
cover of de night! Ax him--dat's all, ax him!"

"An' ax him one thing mo'!" It was the voice of her short companion
rising above the tumult. "Ax him whut he done wid de funds of de s'ciety
he 'stablished at Little Rock, Arkansaw, all of w'ich he absconded wid
dis last spring!"

As though the same set of muscles controlled every neck the heads of all
swung about, their eyes following where the accusers pointed, t