Judge Fulsom slowly tapped his pipe on the arm of his chair. “If you all will keep still a second and let me speak,” he began.
“I want my rights,” interrupted a man with a hoarse crow.
“Your rights!” shouted the Judge. “You’ve got no right to a damned thing but a good horsewhipping!”
“I’ve got my rights to the money other folks are keeping, I’ll let you know!”
Then the Judge fairly bellowed, as he got slowly to his feet:
“I tell you once for all, the whole damned lot of you,” he shouted, “that every man, woman and child in Brookville has been paid, compensated, remunerated and requited in full for every cent he, she or it lost in the Andrew Bolton bank failure.”
There was a snarl of dissent.
“You all better go slow, and hold your tongues, and mind your own business. Remember what I say; that girl does not owe a red cent in this town, neither does her father. She’s paid in full, and you’ve spent a lot of it in here, too!” The Judge wiped his red face.
“Oh, come on, Jedge; you don’t want to be hard on the house,” protested the man in the red sweater, waving his arms as frantically as a freight brakeman. “Say, you boys! don’t ye git excited! The Jedge didn’t mean that; you got him kind of het up with argufying.... Down in front, boys! You, Lute—”
But it was too late: half a dozen voices were shouting at once. There was a simultaneous descent upon the bar, with loud demands for liquor of the sort Lute Parsons filled up on. Then the raucous voice of the ringleader pierced the tumult.