Billy Faraday was far too absorbed in watching the amazing spectacle to answer him, and Jack's question lapsed. The procession drew nearer and nearer, and the noise was ear-splitting. The Cripples drew themselves up before the window of Study 9, and Jack was moved to call out, "Lovely! Is it the National Anthem or Alexander's Ragtime Band? I never could tell the difference."
His shaft of wit, however, went almost unnoticed in the general uproar, and Billy Faraday grasped a more cutting form of witticism; he got a handful of pennies and half-pennies, and threw them one at a time to the serenading party below.
Cummles, hammering at a tin drum with zest, received one of the coins full on the bridge of the nose, and it broke short his performance. He held up his hand, and with a final crash of sound the Cripples completed their selection.
"Know," roared Cummles at the top of his voice, "that a new Society has been formed, called the Calamitous Cripples! We let everybody join—the more the merrier! And our object is—" He turned to his supporters for the rest.
"—death to the Crees!" roared the crowd, in disconcerting chorus.
So this was the strength of the new society—it was a rival show to the Crees! Jack realized that Cummles was getting his own back for his rejection and disgrace at the last Cree meeting, and he whistled softly. But Cummles was speaking again.
"We therefore begin on the Chief Cree!" he yelled, and as at a given signal all the Cripples raised their hands, and sent a volley of hard, tightly-rolled paper balls at Jack and Billy as they stood open-mouthed at the window.
The fusillade took the two Crees by surprise, and Jack for the moment did not know what to do; but he soon settled that question, and with Billy jumped out of the window, and rushed the banner of the Calamitous Cripples. It was flagrantly against rules to jump out of the window at all, and soon a free fight was taking place around the banner of the Cripples.
"To it, Crees!" yelled Jack, wrestling furiously with one of the banner supporters. Someone had grasped his leg, and he could not keep upright much longer; sooner or later he would have to go down.
"Ouch!" Down he went, and down went half a dozen others in a panting, scrambling, tossing mass.