“I don’t understand it,” he says.  “It sure wouldn’t be the least use boosting for a brighter and busier Red Gap if everybody was as cold-blooded as the French.”  He was right grouchy about the French after this.

Anyway, he got his suffering man back to Horticultural Hall somewhat the worse for being stepped on by the crowd; in fact, the Frenchman is kind of all in when he gets to the auction block.  He sets right down on it looking white, and Genevieve May gets him a glass of water to revive him.  Pretty soon he says he’s nearly as well as ever, but that wasn’t much.

Now the patriots for the auction begun to throng in and Genevieve May is once more proud and fluttering.  She glances fondly at her noble array of jars, with these illegitimate preserves shining richly through, and she gets the Frenchman on his feet and onto the box; and the crowd cheers like mad and presses close.  I was standing close to G.H.  Stultz, and he whispers to me: 

“My Lord!  If there was only some means of getting that stock into the German commissary!  But I’m told they analyze everything.  Anyway, I got my bidders planted and I’ll have to buy up the stock if it breaks me.”

Then the Frenchman begun to talk in a very nice way.  He said a few words about his country—­how they had been fighting all these years, not knowing whether they could win or not, but meaning to fight till there wasn’t any fighters left; and how grateful France was for the timely aid of this great country and for the efforts of beautiful ladies like Madam Popper, and so on.

You bet no one laughed, even if he didn’t talk such very good English.  They didn’t even laugh when he said beautiful ladies like Madam Popper, though Cousin Egbert, somewhere off in the crowd, made an undignified sound which he pretended was coughing.

The Frenchman then said he would now ask for bids for these beautiful table delicacies, which were not only of rich food value but were more priceless than gold and jewels because of having been imprisoned in the crystal glass by the fair hands of the beautiful Madam Popper; and what was he offered for six bottles of this unspeakable jelly?

Of course G.H.  Stultz would of had ’em in no time if the panic hadn’t saved him.  Yes, sir; right then something terrible and unforeseen happened to cause a frightful panic.  About five of them jars of preserves blew up with loud reports.  Of course everyone’s first thought was that a German plot was on to lay Horticultural Hall in ruins with dynamite.  It sounded such.  No one thought it was merely these strange preserves that had been working overtime in that furnace.

Women screamed and strong men made a dash for the door over prostrate bodies.  And then a lot more explosions took place.  The firing became general, as the reports say.  Bottle after bottle shot its dread contents into the fray, and many feeble persons was tromped on by the mob.