“Well, sir!” he roared.
How unlike that smooth–speaking, mild–tempered man, who usually went by the name of Baggs! His face was ruffled and darkened with rage. His skin seemed to be blown out; and as certain unnoticed pimples had grown also, it had a mottled, puffy look, like that of a frog. In the midst of this turgidity and discoloration, his twisted eye flashed and wriggled in a frightful manner, while his voice was hoarse and blatant as that of a fog–horn.
“You—you are a pretty—feller—in—in this store! Git—git—out of this!” he shouted, catching his breath.
As his peculiarity of sight made it difficult to always tell whom he might be looking at, both the young men glanced doubtfully at Baggs, and then inquiringly at one another; as if about to say, “Whom does he mean?”
“Git—git—out!” he roared again.
“Who—o—o?” asked the young man outside the counter.
“You—you—you!” said Baggs, with tremendous emphasis, advancing toward the young man inside the counter. “I mean you, Walter Plympton. I—I—have heard your—talk—talk—for the last five minutes. I mean you, sir, whose—whose uncle I have been striving—ving—to exalt to the—the—pin—pin—nack—ul of untold wealth. I mean you, an ungrateful neph—neph—ew. I mean you, who wouldn’t give to a fellow—that’s—that’s faint—a little sip—sip that would do him no harm. Will the—law—law stop that work of—mer—mercy to the sick? You were not—asked—as I understand—it—to sell, but simp—simply to put—as I understand it—the bottle here.”
With new and frightful energy, Baggs here pounded the counter, which he had struck several times before.
“You were not asked—asked—to do anything more. Will you—you not—befriend the—the—”
Although Baggs’ philanthropy did not fail him, and he could have talked an hour as the champion of the faint and weary, yet his breath did desert him; and he stood there, gasping, “the—the—the—the—”