ting insulted?

He struck across the Drive into a side street. An apartment house
occupied the corner, but from the other side a row of handsome private
dwellings faced him.

The janitor of the apartment house was watering the parking beyond the
sidewalk. The edge of the stream from the nozzle of the hose sprayed
the path in front of Clay. He hesitated for a moment to give the man
time to turn aside the hose.

But the janitor on this particular morning had been fed up with
trouble. One of the tenants had complained of him to the agent of the
place. Another had moved away without tipping him for an hour's help
in packing he had given her. He was sulkily of the opinion that the
whole world was in a conspiracy to annoy him. Just now the approaching
rube typified the world.

A little flirt of the hose deluged Clay's newly shined boots and the
lower six inches of his trousers.

"Look out what you're doing!" protested the man from Arizona.

"I tank you better look where you're going," retorted the one from
Sweden. He was a heavy-set, muscular man with a sullen, obstinate face.

"My shoes and trousers are sopping wet."

"Yust you bate it oop street. I ant look for no trouble with no rubes."

"I believe you did it on purpose."

"Tank so? Val, yust one teng I lak to tell you. I got no time for
damn fule talk."

The Westerner started on his way. There was no use having a row with a
sulky janitor.

But the Swede misunderstood his purpose. At Clay's first step forward
he jerked round the nozzle and let the range-rider have it with full
force.

Clay was swept back to the wall by the heavy pressure of water that
played over him. The stream moved swiftly up and down him from head to
foot till it had drenched every inch of the perfect fifty-five-dollar
suit. He drowned fathoms deep in a water spout. He was swept over
Niagara Falls. He came to life again to find himself the choking
center of a world flood. He sputtered furiously while his arms flailed
like windmills to keep back the river of water that engulfed him.

The thought that brought him back to action was one that had to do with
the blue serge. The best fifty-five-dollar suit in New York was ruined
in this submarine disaster.

He gave a strangled whoop and charged straight at the man behind the
hose. The two clinched. While they struggled, the writhing hose
slapped back and forth between them like an agitated snake. Clay had
one advanta