“If those big fellows keep quiet, and I think they will—they are a different class—we may pull through; or if you could persuade them that everything is sound and square and there is no need for this run. But I doubt if you can. They keep coming from every quarter, like bees round a honeypot. There’s a whole load of fresh ones!” the cashier said, pointing to a democrat wagon full of men and women from the country, driving up in hot haste, either to see what was going on or to get what was due them, the latter most likely, as the moment they alighted they pushed through the crowd, asking eagerly, “Are we too late? Has it bust?”
The judge groaned, and thought a moment. He was perspiring at every pore, and had removed his coat and necktie and collar, so as to breathe more freely.
“I’ll speak to ’em,” he said. “I’ll tell ’em to go home. By the Lord, I wish I had a shotgun! I’d fire into ’em. It’s like a strike, and against me—me!”
He was purple in the face, and shaking with rage, and Fred Lansing doubted the expediency of his speaking to the crowd in his present mood. But he was determined, and nothing could stop him. The idiots would listen to him, Judge White, and going up the stairs which led from his rear office to the hall of the second floor, he entered a law office along whose windows a narrow balcony ran. This was filled with the occupants of the second floor, but they made room for the judge, whose voice, always strong and powerful, rang out like a great horn, and attracted every eye to him as he stood, coatless and hatless, with collar and necktie gone, his face purple, except his nose and lips, which were ghastly white. He was not much like the faultlessly attired man the people had been accustomed to see driving in his handsome carriage behind his black horses and his coachman in brown-coated and brass-buttoned livery, a thing some had ridiculed as airs, and others had resented as a badge of servitude not fitted to a small place like Merivale. The judge was not popular, and had never tried to make himself so, except when there was something to be gained by it. As a rule, he was haughty and arrogant, ignoring the common people entirely, or noticing them with a nod which told the distance he thought there was between them and himself.
At sight of him and the sound of his voice shouting, “Order, you fellows! Order, I say! Don’t you hear me?” a hush fell for a moment on the crowd; then, a group of boys, some of whom had felt the weight of his gold-headed cane when he caught them in his melon patch, set up a caterwauling, with cries of:
“There he is! There’s old money bags! Isn’t he a beauty? He’s going to make a speech. Better give us what you owe us than your gab.”
But for Fred Lansing, Herbert would have rushed into the street and collared the boys insulting his father, who tottered as if about to fall and leaned heavily on his cane, as the cries came up to him, louder and more vociferous.
“Silence, you ragamuffins, you villains, you fools!” he roared, flourishing his cane in the air, and in his backward sweep almost hitting Fred Lansing, who had hurried up the stairs and stood at his side, with an arm on his shoulder to steady him, and something in his manner which commanded attention and respect.
“My dear friends, ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “Please keep quiet and let the judge speak and explain matters, which he can do to your entire satisfaction.”
Cries of “Go on, go on; hear, hear!” now came from the boys, one of whom was knocked down by a sympathizer with the judge, who saw the act and called out, “Yes, that’s it; knock ’em all down; wring their necks; send for the police and have ’em arrested, every mother’s son of ’em.”