“It’s bad enough,” he grumbled, “to stand up and get shot at for thirteen dollars a month. But when we’ve got to stomach an old goat like you, along with the job, by gollies, it adds new horrors to war! You talk like you’re the same breed as old monkey-faced Abe, down there in Washington.”
The smile was wiped clean off Dad’s face now. His eyes were cold, and his mouth was set in a very straight, thin line.
“My friend,” he said with slow gravity, “you don’t realize what you are saying. So I will explain to you, if you will let me. President Abraham Lincoln is commander-in-chief of the army to which you have sworn allegiance. In speaking of your commander-in-chief as you have just done, you do not insult him—he is too high for insults to reach him—but you insult your army, and likewise your own self-respect. You didn’t stop to think of that when you spoke, did you? I’m sure you didn’t. But you will another time.”
The bargee’s head shot forward from between his suddenly hunched shoulders. There was a menacing scowl on his low, receding brow, below which his eyes had narrowed to pinpoints that gleamed redly.
“I don’t want no lectures,” he snarled, “from any fat-headed old blowhard.” Angry, the bargee, nevertheless, rejoiced in secret that at last he had aroused his foe from his former kindly calm. “And I’ve got a right to speak my opinions as I choose to. This is a free country. Or it was till they stuck up a lantern-jawed, backwoods booby in the President’s chair. That’s some more of my opinions; how d’ye like that?”
Somebody hissed. The hiss was taken up from various parts of the car.
But at the next moment every man was on his feet; and on the instant hush that had fallen a hundred necks were craned.
With almost incalculable swiftness Dad had sprung up and faced the bargee. The latter, reading the white-fire message in the lately kind blue eyes, hesitated not the fraction of a second, but struck out instinctively.
The hamlike fist swished portentously through the air.
But the air was all it encountered. Dad, ducking the blow, ran in. Before the bargee could grapple, he was lifted bodily on high.