Broadway cowered behind his counter.

"Put me up a fig o' tobacker, a pound of tea, quart o' merlasses,
ten pounds of crackers, hunk o' pork, and two cans of them salmons,"
he ordered.

In past years Mr. Luce had always slunk into Broadway's store
apologetically, a store-bill everlastingly unpaid oppressing his
spirits. Now he bellowed autocratic command, and his soul swelled
when he saw Broadway timorously hastening to obey.

"I'll show 'em whuther I'm an outlaw or not," he muttered. "And I
wisht I'd been one before, if it works like this. The monarch of the
Injies couldn't git more attention," he reflected, as he saw the
usually contemptuous Broadway hustling about, wrapping up the goods.

He saw scared faces peering in at him through the windows. He swung
the sack off his shoulder, and bumped it on the floor with a flourish.

"My Lord-amighty, be careful with that!" squawked Broadway, ducking
down behind the counter.

"You 'tend to business and make less talk, and you won't git hurt,"
observed Mr. Luce, ferociously. He pointed at the storekeeper the
stick of dynamite that he carried in his hand. And Mr. Broadway hopped
up and bestirred himself obsequiously.

"I don't know whuther I'll ever pay for these or not," announced Mr.
Luce, grabbing the bundles that Broadway poked across the counter
as gingerly as he would feed meat to a tiger. He stuffed them into
his sack. "I shall do jest as I want to about it. And when I've et
up this grub in my lair, where I propose to outlaw it for a while,
I shall come back for some more; and if I don't git it, along with
polite treatment, I'll make it rain groc'ries in this section for
twenty-four hours."

"I didn't uphold them that smashed in your door," protested the
storekeeper, getting behind the coffee-grinder.

"I've been squdged too fur, that's what has been done," declared Mr.
Luce, "and it was your seleckman that done it, and I hold the whole
town responsible. I don't know what I'm li'ble to do next. I've showed
_him_--now I'm li'ble to show the town. I dunno! It depends."

He went out and stood on the store platform, and gazed about him with
the air of Alexander on the banks of the Euphrates. For the first
time in his lowly life Mr. Luce saw mankind shrink from before him.
It was the same as deference would have seemed to a man who had earned
respect, and the little mind of Smyrna's outlaw whirled dizzily in
his filbert skull.

"I don't know what I'll do yit,"