“I follers through a back room; then as I steps out the door I’m grabbed by this new friend, while Murdock bathes my head with a gas-pipe billy, one of the regulation, strike promotin’ kind, like they use for decoyin’ members into the glorious ranks of Labour.

“I saw a ‘Burning of Rome’ that was a dream, and whole cloudbursts of shootin’ stars, but I yanked Mr. Enthusiastic Stranger away from my surcingle and throwed him agin the wall.  In the shuffle Murdock shifts my ballasts though, and steams up the alley with my greenbacks, convoyed by his friend.

“‘Wow-ow,’ says I, givin’ the distress signal so that the windows rattled, and reachin’ for my holster.  I’d ‘a’ got them both, only the gun caught in my suspender.  You see, not anticipatin’ any live bird shoot I’d put it inside my pants-band, under my vest, for appearances.  A forty-five is like fresh air to a drownding man—­generally has to be drawed in haste—­and neither one shouldn’t be mislaid.  I got her out at last and blazed away, just a second after they dodged around the comer.  Then I hit the trail after ’em, lettin’ go a few sky-shots and gettin’ a ghost-dance holler off my stummick that had been troubling me.  The wallop on the head made me dizzy though, and I zigzagged awful, tackin’ out of the alley right into a policeman.

“‘Whee!’ says I in joy, for he had Murdock safe by the bits, buckin’ considerable.

“‘Stan’ aside and le’mme ’lectrocute ‘im,’ says I. I throwed the gun on him and the crowd dogged it into all the doorways and windows convenient, but I was so weak-minded in the knees I stumbled over the curb and fell down.

“Next thing I knew we was all bouncin’ over the cobble-stones in a patrol wagon.

“Well, in the morning I told my story to the Judge, plain and unvarnished.  Then Murdock takes the stand and busts into song, claiming that he was comin’ through the alley toward Clark Street when I staggered out back of a saloon and commenced to shoot at him.  He saw I was drunk, and fanned out, me shootin’ at him with every jump.  He had proof, he said, and he called for the president of his Union, Mr. Heegan.  At the name all the loafers and stew-bums in the court-room stomped and said, ‘Hear, hear,’ while up steps this Napoleon of the Hoboes.

“Sure, he knew Mr. Murdock—­had known him for years, and he was perfectly reliable and honest.  As to his robbing me, it was preposterous, because he himself was at the other end of the alley and saw the whole thing, just as Mr. Murdock related it.

“I jumps up.  ‘You’re a liar, Heegan.  I was buyin’ booze for the two of you;’ but a policeman nailed me, chokin’ off my rhetorics.  Mr. Heegan leans over and whispers to the Judge, while I got chilblains along my spine.

“‘Look here, kind Judge,’ says I real winning and genteel, ’this man is so good at explainin’ things away, ask him to talk off this bump over my ear.  I surely didn’t get a buggy spoke and laminate myself on the nut.