The butcher stood stupidly and rubbed his neck, waiting for the wits that had been choked out of him to return, and far down the street Mayor Stitz, hearing a noise, came out on his front platform and looked up the street. It appeared to him that something was going on, and sticking his awl in the door of his car, he walked blandly up the street to where the remnant of the crowd formed a half circle around the butcher. He crowded through, saying, “Look out, the mayor is coming. Stand one side yet for the mayor!”
The butcher looked and saw before him the round, innocent face of the mayor, topped by the mayor's round bald head. He raised his large, fat hand, and in vent for all his injured feelings brought it down, smack! On the smooth bald spot.
“Ouw-etch!” said the mayor.
He was surprised. He backed away and rubbed the top of his head, and what he said next was a rapid string of real, genuine German; exclamations, compound tenses, and irregular verbs and all that makes German a useful, forceful language. As long as he rubbed his head—with a rotary motion—he spoke German; then he stopped rubbing and spoke English.
“So is it you treat your mayor!” he exclaimed indignantly. “Such a town is Kilo, to give mayors a klop on the head! Donnerblitzenvetter! Not so is it in Germany.” He turned to the crowd. “A klop on the head! It is not for klops on the head that I am mayor. No. I resign out of this mayor business. Go get another mayor, such as likes klops on the head. I am no mayor. I am resigned.”
He turned and walked slowly back to his car, pulled the awl out of the door, and went inside.
The editor moved away from the window. He seated himself at his desk and leaned his head on his arms and thought.
“Headache?” asked Eliph'.
“No,” said the editor, lifting his head. “I'm trying to think this thing out. Guthrie is in it, and Skinner must be in it, and Stitz. And that fellow across the way said you knew something about it, and he said Doc Weaver wrote the article. No,” he added hastily, as Eliph' offered to speak, “let me think it out myself.”
He leaned his head on his hand, and gazed at the attorney's office. He drew the week's copy of the TIMES toward him and read over the article that had caused all the trouble.