o be in the store next morning before ten, and the elder B.,
who was one of my few acquaintances, was chatting to me of nothing in
particular, when I saw such an expression of surprise come into his
face, that I turned at once in the direction his glance had taken, and
saw a man plunging down the aisle toward us, like an ugly steer. He
looked a cross between a Sabbath-school superintendent and a cattle
dealer. He was six feet tall and very clumsy, and wore the black
broadcloth of the church and the cow-hide boots, big hat, and woollen
comforter of the cattle man; while his rage was so evident that even
organ-grinders and professional beggars fled from his presence. On he
came, stamping and shaking his head steerlike. One expected every moment
to hear him bellow. When he came up to Mr. B., it really did seem that
the man must fall in a fit. When he could speak, he burst into
vituperation and profanity. He d----d the city, its founders, and its
present occupants. He d----d Mr. B., his ancestors, his relatives near
and distant, by blood and by law; but he was exceptionally florid when
he came to tell Mr. B. how many kinds of a fool he was.

When his breath was literally gone, my unfortunate friend, who had
alternately flushed and paled under the attack, said:--

"Mr. Dash, if you will be good enough to explain what this is all
about--"

"Explain!" howled the enraged man, "explain! in the place where I come
from our jokes don't need to be explained. You ring-tail gibbering ape,
come out here on the sidewalk, and I'll explain!"

Then he paused an instant, as a new thought came to him.

"Oh, yes," he cried, "and if I take you out there, to lick some of the
_fun_ out of you, one of your constables will jump on to me! You're a
sweet, polite lot, to play jokes on strangers, and then hide behind your
constables!"

Then his voice fell, his eyes narrowed, he looked an ugly customer as he
approached Mr. B., saying:--

"You thought it d----d funny to send me to that play last night, on
purpose to show me you knew I had just got a divorce from my wife! And
if I have divorced her, let me tell you she's a finer woman than you
ever knew in your whole fool life! It was d----d funny, wasn't it, to
send a lonely man--a stranger--into a playhouse to see his own misery
acted out before him! Well, in New York that may be fun, and call for
laughter, but at my home it would call for _bullets_--and get 'em too!"

[Illustration: _Clara Mo