"Sh! fer Christ's sake!" I admonished, "they're hearing you."
"That's jest what I want 'em to do ... I don't owe nothin' to no man, an' it's time someone told 'em somethin'."
Breakfast over, we were marched off to the courthouse. We were turned loose together in a large room. We felt so good with the sausage, cakes and coffee in our bellies, that we pushed each other about, sang, jigged, whistled.
As we had walked in, I had asked, of the cop who walked by my side—who seemed affable....
"Say, mister, after all what's the idea?"
"We had to make an example," he returned, frankly.
"I don't quite get you!"
"Last week a bunch of bums dropped off here at our town, and they almost ran the diggings for about twenty-four hours ... insulted women on the streets ... robbed ice-boxes ... even stole the clothes off the lines."
"In other words, you mean that a bunch of drunken yeggs dropped in on the town, gutted it, and then jumped out ... and we poor harmless bums are the ones that have to pay."