The stranger smiled in a cool manner, letting his eyes run over the wiper from his feet to his head and then back again.
“It strikes me that you must be a misfit at anything,” he said, suavely. “About the only thing you can be real good for is to drink beer. It’s plain that you are a tank!”
“Yah!” snarled the man, ceasing to laugh in a moment and showing his temper. “You don’t want to make any funny remarks!”
“I don’t see anything funny about that. On the face of it, it is a truthful statement, and you are a living, breathing witness. If you can’t have your booze regularly, you do not consider life worth the living. You would make a first-class advertisement for a cheap grog shop.”
The big wiper actually staggered.
“What?” he faintly gasped. “What’s that? Why, I’ll eat him!”
“If you try it, you will find that I digest hard,” came calmly from the stranger, who was watching the man closely. “I can read your history in short order. Numb, rum, bum. That’s enough.”
For a few moments it seemed that the big wiper would hit the stranger, but instead, he struck one of the men who had caught hold of his arm and cautioned him. The force of the blow drove the man up against the rear driving wheel of the engine and made a cut on his cheek, starting the blood. The man put up a greasy hand to wipe away the blood, saying, huskily:
“That’s all right, Mart. I was doin’ it for your good. Knowed you’d be fired if you struck him and he complained on ye. That’s all right.”
And not one of the other men said a word. It was plain that every one of them was afraid of the fellow called Mart, whom the visitor saw was the bully among the wipers.