"Where is my father? What trouble is he in?"
"I reckon it can't be any kind of trouble but what he'll be capable of
taking care of himself in it all right," opined the guard, fondling his
cheek with the back of his hand. "But there ain't any trouble in here,
Miss Corson. It's all serene as a canned sardine that was canned for the
siege of Troy, as it said in the opery the High School Cadets put on that
year you was in the--"
"There's a mob in front of the State House!"
"It'll stay there," stated Wyman, remaining as serene as the comestible he
had mentioned. "The St. Ronan's Rifles can't be backed down by any mob. We
have been ordered to shoot, and that kind of a gang in this city might as
well learn its lesson to-night as any other night. It's getting time to do
a lot of law-and-order shooting in this country."
The girl, harrowed by her apprehensions, was not in the mood to discuss
affairs with this amateur belligerent. But his complacency in his
bloodthirsty attitude was peculiarly exasperating in her case. He seemed
to typify that unreasonable spirit of slaughter that disdained to employ
the facilities of good sense first of all. This florist's clerk, whom she
had last seen on a step-ladder with his mouth full of tacks, was talking
of shooting down his fellow-civilians as if there were no other
alternative.
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