"Shut up!" said Parks. "We're not ready to talk of guns and barricades."
At this moment a sudden noise of scuffle and angry voices rose above the sounds of conversation and argument that filled the room. Some one made an abortive attempt to blow a police whistle; curses and blows thrilled the air; and then the swinging doors fell apart and a man staggered in, holding dizzily to the door-post for support. His hat was crushed, his clothing torn, and his face covered with blood that seemed to blind him.
As he staggered into the saloon, ten or twelve young men, hardly more than boys, crowded after him, striking at him with fists and clubs. Their faces were hard at best, the lines written upon them by vice and crime giving plain warning to all who might read; but now rage and hatred and lust for blood lighted their eyes and flushed their cheeks, till they might have stood as models for escapes from the infernal regions.
"The cop!" cried a voice; and others took it up, and I recognized in the battered man the policeman who had shown me my way.
"He's the cop as got Paddy Rafferty sent across the bay for ten years," shouted one of the hoodlums, striking a blow that was barely warded off.
"Kick him!" "Do him up!" "Kill him!" came in excited chorus from all parts of the room and swelled into a roar that lost semblance of articulate sound.
Parks and I jumped to our feet at the first sound of the riot.
"Here! this won't do!" said Parks roughly, throwing me back in my chair. "Sit down! You'll get killed without doing any good. I'll settle this." And before I could remonstrate he was running down the room shouting wrathfully.
As I got to my feet again, I saw him pulling and hauling at the mob, shouting lustily in the ears of the men as he threw them aside.
"Come on!" I cried. "We must take a hand in this." And at my call Clark and the Englishman and the little German rose and followed in the wake of the young agitator.