"So when Jimmy gets up to the man with the steam whistle in his throat, he grabs him by the whiskers, gives 'em a tug like he'd pull 'em off, and he says pretty sharp, 'Sit down.' And the feller set, and just as he did he opens his mouth to let out another yell, and Jimmy grabs a cap from another man's head and sticks it in his mouth, and that stopped him. So after he gets the cap out, Jimmy says, 'Now what's the row?'
"And the man points at my Pa and says, 'That man says Russia is a free country,' he says, and starts in to give another yell, only Jimmy lifts a finger at him and the man stops with his mouth open, and he looked foolish I tell you. So then Jimmy bends down and whispers something in the man's ear, and the feller smiles and pats Pa on the shoulder gentlelike, every once in a while, and Pa lets on he never notices it, though I seen he's kinder mad about something.
"Just as Jimmy gets back to the platform a Dago and a Hungarian gets to words about who's the best mus-i-cans in the ward.
"Oh! moosicians, is it? Have it your own way.
"You see the Hungarians was awful mad because the Dagos beat 'em out catering to supply the music for the night, and the Dago orchestra was playing the swellest ragtime music you ever heard. Well, them two gets to blows, and about fifteen others are jumping around ready to pile in when Jimmy Duggan begins to pound on the table with a wooden hammer what they uses in lodges and club rooms.
"A gavel, eh! Very well, me learned friend, I'll not dispute it.
"He bangs so hard they all quits their scrapping and begins to take notice. 'I am just informed, gentlemen,' says Jimmy, 'that the Honorable Fixem is now on the stairs on his way into this meeting, and I would ask the ork-estra,' he says, 'to greet him with a few bars of——'
"And just then the door opens, and a little procession comes in escortin' the Honorable Fixem, and the ork-estra leader waves his hand frantic and the ork-estra strikes up 'All Coons Look Alike to Me.' Well, say, you'd orter heard the row. Some was cheerin' and some was laughin', and the Honorable Fixem he was looking like a sheep outer the meadows, and Jimmy Duggan yells out, 'Stop that tune, darn it,' he says, and the ork-estra man leader he didn't hear what Jimmy says and he thought that he wanted it louder, so he waves his hands like mad and the ork-estra sails into that tune like they'd never quit it, until Jimmy leans over and grabs the leader by the back of the neck and nearly chokes the breath outer him, and the ork-estra is just comin' for Jimmy en massey when the leader says something in Italian and they sits down again looking kinder sad and strikes up 'See the Con'kring Hero Comes,' and the Honorable Fixem gets on the platform. Gee! you'd think that bunch'd never stop yellin'. They just cheered and cheered. Then they begins to present illumernated addresses in every language but Scotch, and my Pa says Scotch ain't anything but two scones on each side of a burr. So when they gets through Jimmy Duggan calls on the Honorable Fixem for a speech, and Fixem started in.
"Say, I never knowed a gover'ment was so much like angels before. The things what the gover'ment's done for this country, judging by the way Fixem told it, is enough to make people want to keep 'em in for ever. My Pa says it's mostly guff, but the pollertishans has gotter feed the people with that kinder guff ev'ry once in a while, he says, they get fat on it, he says.
"Well, everything goes on fine 'cepting some cheers once in a while, until the Honorable gets down to the gover'ment's plans for the immigrants. And he says something about not stooping to bribe any man to cast a vote for the gover'ment by promising to find work for him, but there's a big programme of gover'ment works to be done in the neighbourhood, which, of course, will help to make good times, he says.