e off
her feet for a while by the influences about her. In truth, Katy was not
without her own private and personal indignation against Westcott. Not
because he had spoken of her as a fool. That hurt her feelings, but did
not anger her much. She was not in the habit of getting angry on her own
account. But when she saw three frightful scratches and a black bruise on
the face of Brother Albert, she could not help thinking that Smith had
acted badly. And then to draw a pistol, too! To threaten to kill her own
dear, dear brother! She couldn't ever forgive him, she said. If she had
seen the much more serious damage which poor, dear, dear Smith had
suffered at the tender hands of her dear, dear brother, I doubt not she
would have had an equally strong indignation against Albert.

For Westcott's face was in mourning, and the Privileged Infant had lost
his cheerfulness. He did not giggle for ten days. He did not swear "by
George" once. He did not he! he! The joyful keys and the cheerful
ten-cent coins lay in his pocket with no loving hand to rattle them. He
did not indulge in double-shuffles. He sang no high-toned negro-minstrel
songs. He smoked steadily and solemnly, and he drank steadily and
solemnly. His two clerks were made to tremble. They forgot Smith's
bruised nose and swollen eye in fearing his awful temper. All the
swearing he wanted to do and dared not do at Albert, he did at his
inoffensive subordinates.

Smith Westcott had the dumps. No sentimental heart-break over Katy,
though he did miss her company sadly in a town where there were no
amusements, not even a concert-saloon in which a refined young man could
pass an evening. If he had been in New York now, he wouldn't have minded
it. But in a place like Metropolisville, a stupid little frontier village
of pious and New Englandish tendencies--in such a place, as Smith
pathetically explained to a friend, one can't get along without a
sweetheart, you know.

A few days after Albert's row with Westcott he met George Gray, the
Hoosier Poet, who had haunted Metropolisville, off and on, ever since he
had first seen the "angel."

He looked more wild and savage than usual.

"Hello! my friend," said Charlton heartily. "I'm glad to see you. What's
the matter?"

"Well, Mister Charlton, I'm playin' the gardeen angel."

"Guardian angel! How's that?"

"I'm a sorter gardeen of your sister. Do you see that air pistol? Hey?
Jist as sure as shootin,' I'll kill that Wes'cott