第67章

ESKEW ARP

As the Judge continued his walk down Main Street, he wished profoundly that the butterfly (which exhibited no annoyance) had been of greater bulk and more approachable; and it was the evil fortune of Joe's mongrel to encounter him in the sinister humor of such a wish unfulfilled.

Respectability dwelt at Beaver Beach under the care of Mr.Sheehan until his master should return;and Sheehan was kind; but the small dog found the world lonely and time long without Joe.He had grown more and more restless, and at last, this hot morning, having managed to evade the eye of all concerned in his keeping, made off unobtrusively, partly by swimming, and reaching the road, cantered into town, his ears erect with anxiety.

Bent upon reaching the familiar office, he passed the grocery from the doorway of which the pimply cheeked clerk had thrown a bad potato at him a month before.The same clerk had just laid down the Tocsin as Respectability went by, and, inspired to great deeds in behalf of justice and his native city, he rushed to the door, lavishly seized, this time, a perfectly good potato, and hurled it with a result which ecstasized him, for it took the mongrel fairly aside the head, which it matched in size.

The luckless Respectability's purpose to reach Joe's stairway had been entirely definite, but upon this violence he forgot it momentarily.It is not easy to keep things in mind when one is violently smitten on mouth, nose, cheek, eye, and ear by a missile large enough to strike them simultaneously.

Yelping and half blinded, he deflected to cross Main Street.Judge Pike had elected to cross in the opposite direction, and the two met in the middle of the street.

The encounter was miraculously fitted to the Judge's need: here was no butterfly, but a solid body, light withal, a wet, muddy, and dusty yellow dog, eminently kickable.The man was heavily built about the legs, and the vigor of what he did may have been additionally inspired by his recognition of the mongrel as Joe Louden's.The impact of his toe upon the little runner's side was momentous, and the latter rose into the air.The Judge hopped, as one hops who, unshod in the night, discovers an unexpected chair.Let us be reconciled to his pain and not reproach the gods with it,--for two of his unintending adversary's ribs were cracked.

The dog, thus again deflected, retraced his tracks, shrieking distractedly, and, by one of those ironical twists which Karma reserves for the tails of the fated, dived for blind safety into the store commanded by the ecstatic and inimical clerk.

There were shouts; the sleepy Square beginning to wake up: the boy who had mocked the planing-mill got to his feet, calling upon his fellows; the bench loafers strolled to the street; the aged men stirred and rose from their chairs; faces appeared in the open windows of offices; sales ladies and gentlemen came to the doorways of the trading-places; so that when Respectability emerged from the grocery he had a notable audience for the scene he enacted with a brass dinner-bell tied to his tail.

Another potato, flung by the pimpled, uproarious, prodigal clerk, added to the impetus of his flight.A shower of pebbles from the hands of exhilarated boys dented the soft asphalt about him; the hideous clamor of the pursuing bell increased as he turned the next corner, running distractedly.The dead town had come to life, and its inhabitants gladly risked the dangerous heat in the interests of sport, whereby it was a merry chase the little dog led around the block, For thus some destructive instinct drove him; he could not stop with the unappeasable Terror clanging at his heels and the increasing crowd yelling in pursuit;but he turned to the left at each corner, and thus came back to pass Joe's stairway again, unable to pause there or anywhere, unable to do anything except to continue his hapless flight, poor meteor.

Round the block he went once more, and still no chance at that empty stairway where, perhaps, he thought, there might be succor and safety.Blood was upon his side where Martin Pike's boot had crashed, foam and blood hung upon his jaws and lolling tongue.He ran desperately, keeping to the middle of the street, and, not howling, set himself despairingly to outstrip the Terror.The mob, disdaining the sun superbly, pursued as closely as it could, throwing bricks and rocks at him, striking at him with clubs and sticks.Happy Fear, playing "tic-tac-toe," right hand against left, in his cell, heard the uproar, made out something of what was happening, and, though unaware that it was a friend whose life was sought, discovered a similarity to his own case, and prayed to his dim gods that the quarry might get away.

"MAD DOG!" they yelled."MAD DOG!" And there were some who cried, "JOE LOUDEN'S DOG!"that being equally as exciting and explanatory.