“Mails close at 9 P.M.”
McGlynn tapped at the glass, received no attention, and commenced to beat a tattoo. The window was snatched open, and the fat clerk, very red, thrust his face in the opening.
“What do you want?” he demanded truculently.
“Any letters for John A. McGlynn?”
“This office opens at 8:30 A.M.” said the clerk, slamming shut the window.
Without an instant’s hesitation, and before the man had a chance to retire, McGlynn’s huge fist crashed through the glass and into his face.
The crowd had waited patiently; but now, with a brutal snarl, it surged forward. McGlynn, a pleasant smile on his face, swung slowly about.
“Keep your line, boys! Keep your line!” he boomed. “There’s no trouble! It’s only a little Englishman who don’t know our ways yet.”
Inside the building the postal force, white and scared yet over the menacing growl of the beast they had so nearly roused, hastened to resume their tasks. I heard later that the last man in line reached the window only at three 128 o’clock in the morning. Also that next day McGlynn was summoned by Geary, then postmaster, to account for his share in the row; and that in the end Geary apologized and was graciously forgiven by McGlynn! I can well believe it.
We found Yank and Talbot still at the edge of the hotel veranda.