Back Home: Being the Narrative of Judge Priest and His People

by Irvin S. Cobb

Daniel the Mystic looked this way and that, seeking a handy way of escape, but both ways were barred to him. At one side of the stage was Doctor Lake, aiming a walking stick at him like a spear; and at the other side was Mr. Felsburg, with an umbrella for a weapon.

Old Mr. Gid Irons was frightfully quick. His hands shot out with hard, fast dabbing motions like a cat striking at a rolling ball, and he planted his fists wheresoever he aimed.

Daniel the Mystic's long arms flew and flailed wildly in air and his mane of hair tossed. He threw his crossed hands across his face to save it and Mr. Irons hit him in the stomach. He lowered his hands to his vitals in an agonized clutch and Mr. Irons hit him in the jaw.

I know now in the light of a riper experience of such things that it was most wonderfully fast work, and all of it happening much faster than the time I have taken here to tell it, Mr. Gid Irons wading steadily in and Daniel the Mystic flopping about and threshing and yelling—he was beginning to yell—and the chairs flipping over on their backs and every-, body standing up and whooping. All of a sudden Daniel the Mystic went down flat on his back, calling for help on some one whose name I will take oath was not D. C. Davello. It sounded more like Thompson.

Doctor Lake dropped his walking stick and ran out from the wings.

“It would be highly improper to strike a man when he's down,” he counseled Mr. Irons as he grabbed Daniel the Mystic by the armpits and heaved him up flappingly. “Allow me to help the gentleman to his feet.”

Mr. Irons hit him just once more, a straight jabbing center blow, and knocked him clear into and under his black calico cabinet, so far in it and under it that its curtains covered all but his legs, which continued to flutter and waggle feebly.

“Get a couple-a chairs, Gideon.” This advice came from Mr. Herman Felsburg who jumped up and down and directed an imaginary orchestra of bass drummers with his umbrella for a baton—“Get a couple-a chairs and stand on the son-of-a-gun's stomach. It does the subcheck no harm and the subcheck feels no pain. As a favor to me, Gideon, I ask you, stand on his stomach.”

But Mr. Irons was through. He turned about and came down the runway and passed out, rearing back and jarring his heels down hard. If he had spoken a single word the whole time I hadn't heard it. As I remarked several times before he was a small man and so I am not trying to explain the optical delusion of the moment. I am only trying to tell how Mr. Gid Irons looked as he passed me. He looked seven feet tall.

It must have been just about this time that D. C. Davello worked his way out from underneath the hippopotamously vast bulk of Fatty McManus and started running back up the stairs. But before he reached the door the city marshal, who had been standing downstairs all the time and strange to say, hadn't, it would appear, heard any of the clamor, ran up behind him and arrested him for loud talking and disorderly conduct. The city marshal obtusely didn't look inside the door for visual evidences of any trouble within; he would listen to no reason. He grabbed D. C. Davello by the coat collar and pulled him back to the sidewalk and had him halfway across Market Square to the lock-up before the captive could make him understand what had really happened. Even then the official displayed a dense and gummy stupidity, for he kept demanding further details and made the other tell everything over to him at least twice. This also took time, because D. C. Davello was excited and stammering and the city marshal was constantly interrupting him. So that, by the time he finally got the straight of things into his head and they got back to St. Clair Hall, the lights were out and the stairs were dark and the last of the audience was tailing away. The city marshal stopped, as if taken with a clever idea, and looked at his watch and remarked to D. C. Davello that he and his friend the Professor would just about have time to catch the 10:50 accommodation for Louisville if they hurried; which seemed strange advice to be giving, seeing that D. C. Davello hadn't asked about trains at all.