Page:Sawdust & Spangles.djvu/258

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220
SAWDUST AND SPANGLES

rather foolish, in those exciting times, and there appeared to me great danger in his action.

Dan, however, mastered the situation. He publicly announced that at the night show he would give a full history of the leader of the mob, and did so with a vengeance. He had learned by careful inquiries something of the character of this fellow, who was a cashier in a bank, and at the evening performance, and in the actual presence of the man and his associates, Dan mounted a stool and gave his enemy such a verbal castigation as few persons have ever received. As he progressed in his speech he waxed eloquent, and in a marvelously deep, clear and penetrating voice pictured the vices and foibles of this "patriotic" cashier, until the audience was ready to mob the man. Suddenly a rush was made to where he had been sitting. But he was gone and the eloquent showman was a complete victor.

That night I roomed at the hotel where Rice was stopping, and in the morning he accompanied me to the depot, to see me off for my home in the West. While waiting there the cashier appeared and begged Dan to retract his assertions of the night before, declaring that otherwise he would be run out of town. Dan