arrested.
After a time his sneer grew so that it turned its glare upon all
things. He became so sharp that he believed in nothing. To him the
police were always actuated by malignant impulses and the rest of the
world was composed, for the most part, of despicable creatures who were
all trying to take advantage of him and with whom, in defense, he was
obliged to quarrel on all possible occasions. He himself occupied a
down-trodden position that had a private but distinct element of
grandeur in its isolation.
The most complete cases of aggravated idiocy were, to his mind, rampant
upon the front platforms of all the street cars. At first his tongue
strove with these beings, but he eventually was superior. He became
immured like an African cow. In him grew a majestic contempt for those
strings of street cars that followed him like intent bugs.
He fell into the habit, when starting on a long journey, of fixing his
eye on a high and distant object, commanding his horses to begin, and
then going into a sort of a trance of observation. Multitudes of
drivers might howl in his rear, and passengers might load him with
opprobrium, he would not awaken until some blue policeman turned red
and began to frenziedly tear bridles and beat the soft noses of the
responsible horses.
When he paused to contemplate the attitude of the police toward himself
and his fellows, he believed that they were the only men in the city
who had no rights. When driving about, he felt that he was held liable
by the police for anything that might occur in the streets, and was the
common prey of all energetic officials. In revenge, he resolved never
to move out of the way of anything, until formidable circumstances, or
a much larger man than himself forced him to it.
Foot-passengers were mere pestering flies with an insane disregard for
their legs and his convenience. He could not conceive their maniacal
desires to cross the streets. Their madness smote him with eternal
amazement. He was continually storming at them from his throne. He
sat aloft and denounced their frantic leaps, plunges, dives and
straddles.
When they would thrust at, or parry, the noses of his champing horses,
making them swing their heads and move their feet, disturbing a solid
dreamy repose, he swore at the men as fools, for he himself could
perceive that Providence had caused it clearly to be written, that he
and his team had the unalienable right to stand in th
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