"'We all take a hand when it's serious,' he replied; 'but in ordinary cases it's generally understood that I do the municipal fighting myself.'
"'We'll consider this an ordinary case, Mr. Mayor,' I said; and I went for that chief magistrate. He presently passed through the window—the fight had no details of interest—and then the town-councillors shook hands with me, congratulated me on my editorial, and walked out quiet through the door.
"Nearly a dozen Egyptians dropped in during the afternoon to remonstrate. I disposed of them in as gentlemanlike a manner as possible. Towards evening I was growing a little tired, and thinking of shutting up for the day, when my foreman, whom the day's proceedings had made young again—such is the effect of joy—informed me that Mr. Huggins of the Scalper was coming down the street. A moment later Mr. Huggins entered. He was a medium-sized man, with sharp, piercing eyes and a well-bronzed face, active as a terrier and tough as a hickory knot. I was sitting in the wreck of the office-desk, but I rose as he came in.
"'Don't stir,' he said pleasantly. 'My name is Huggins; but I am not going to kill you to-day.'
"I said I was much obliged to him.
"'I see you've been receiving visitors,' he went on, looking at the fragments of the chairs. 'Ours, Mr. Beck, is an active and a responsible profession.'
"I said I thought it was.
"'These people have been pressing their arguments home with unseemly haste,' he said. 'It is unkind to treat a stranger thus. Now as for me, I wouldn't draw on you for your first article, not to be made Governor of Illinois. It would be most unprofessional. Give a man a fair show, I say.'
"'Very good, Mr. Huggins.'
"'At the same time, Mr. Beck, I do think you've laid yourself open. You are reckless, not to say insulting. Take my case. You never saw me before, and you've had the weakness to speak of me as the gentlemanly editor of the Scalper.'