“You lie!” he screamed. “You're a Welsh liar, and I'll kill you for this!” The threat was heard by the council and the citizens. But the man seemed so terrible that no one dared reprimand him.
A few moments later the city attorney sent down to the clerk's office for some blanks. Jeff was waiting behind a corner of the hall. He hit me a blow in the neck that knocked me four yards. It was the “rabbit blow” and he expected it to break my neck. The hard muscles that the puddling furnace put there saved my life. I sprang up, and he came after me again. I seized the big fellow by the ankles and threw him down. Then I battered his head against the floor until I was satisfied that he could do me no more harm. He went home and took to his bed.
He announced that when he got out he would charge me with assault. I went before the mayor and offered to plead guilty to such a charge. The mayor protested against it. He said I had done the right thing in protecting the honor of the city, and that the citizens would not permit my action to cost me money. The local banker took up a collection to pay my fine in case a fine should be assessed against me.
My salary as city clerk was forty dollars a month. My wages in the tin mill were seven dollars a day. A week in the mill would have brought me more than a month's pay in the city office. But I hoped the clerkship would lead to something better.
One incident that happened while I was city clerk I have already related. The city attorney almost sent a man to jail because he couldn't understand the lawyer's questions. I put the lawyer's language into simpler words, and the man then understood and quickly cleared himself of the charge against him. At another time, the mill owners petitioned for the vacation of an alley because they wanted to build a railroad switch there to give access to a loading-out station of the mill.
“I suppose,” their representative told me, “that since this would be a favor to the mill, and you were opposed by the mill owners, you will hand it to us in this matter.”
“Why should I?” I asked. “Don't you think you ought to have this alley?”
“Certainly we do, or we wouldn't have asked for it.”
“Do you think the city needs the alley worse than you do?”
“No. It is an alley only on paper. There are no residences there and nobody needs the alley but us.”