“I’ll show ’em whuther I’m an outlaw or not,” he muttered.  “And I wisht I’d been one before, if it works like this.  The monarch of the Injies couldn’t git more attention,” he reflected, as he saw the usually contemptuous Broadway hustling about, wrapping up the goods.

He saw scared faces peering in at him through the windows.  He swung the sack off his shoulder, and bumped it on the floor with a flourish.

“My Lord-amighty, be careful with that!” squawked Broadway, ducking down behind the counter.

“You ’tend to business and make less talk, and you won’t git hurt,” observed Mr. Luce, ferociously.  He pointed at the storekeeper the stick of dynamite that he carried in his hand.  And Mr. Broadway hopped up and bestirred himself obsequiously.

“I don’t know whuther I’ll ever pay for these or not,” announced Mr. Luce, grabbing the bundles that Broadway poked across the counter as gingerly as he would feed meat to a tiger.  He stuffed them into his sack.  “I shall do jest as I want to about it.  And when I’ve et up this grub in my lair, where I propose to outlaw it for a while, I shall come back for some more; and if I don’t git it, along with polite treatment, I’ll make it rain groc’ries in this section for twenty-four hours.”

“I didn’t uphold them that smashed in your door,” protested the storekeeper, getting behind the coffee-grinder.

“I’ve been squdged too fur, that’s what has been done,” declared Mr. Luce, “and it was your seleckman that done it, and I hold the whole town responsible.  I don’t know what I’m li’ble to do next.  I’ve showed him—­now I’m li’ble to show the town.  I dunno!  It depends.”

He went out and stood on the store platform, and gazed about him with the air of Alexander on the banks of the Euphrates.  For the first time in his lowly life Mr. Luce saw mankind shrink from before him.  It was the same as deference would have seemed to a man who had earned respect, and the little mind of Smyrna’s outlaw whirled dizzily in his filbert skull.

“I don’t know what I’ll do yit,” he shouted, hailing certain faces that he saw peering at him.  “It was your seleckman that done it—­and a seleckman acts for a town.  I reckon I shall do some more blowin’ up.”

He calmly walked away up the street, passing Cap’n Sproul, who stood at one side.

“I don’t dast to be an outlaw, hey?” jeered Mr. Luce.

“You don’t dare to set down that sack,” roared the selectman.  “I’ll pay ye five hundred dollars to set down that sack and step out there into the middle of that square—­and I call on all here as witnesses to that offer,” he cried, noting that citizens were beginning to creep back into sight once more.  “Five hundred dollars for you, you bow-legged hen-thief!  You sculpin-mouthed hyena, blowing up men’s property!”

“Hold on,” counselled Mr. Luce.  “You’re goin’ to squdgin’ me ag’in.  I’ve been sassed enough in this town.  I’m goin’ to be treated with respect after this if I have to blow up ev’ry buildin’ in it.”