Page:Earl Derr Biggers - Seven Keys to Baldpate (1913).djvu/414

392 Then a fashion of derisive cat-calls came and went. After which, here and there, voices spoke of ropes, of tar and feathers. And still the mayor smiled as one for whom the orchard gate swung open in May.

A squad of policemen, who had entered the car from the rear, forced their way put on to the platform.

"Want us to see you through the crowd, Mr. Cargan?" the lieutenant asked.

New hoots and cries ascended to the station rafters. "Who pays the police?" "We do." "Who owns 'em?" "Cargan." Thus question and answer were bandied back and forth. Again a voice demanded in strident tones the ignominious tar and feathers.

Jim Cargan had not risen from the slums to be master of his town without a keen sense of the theatric. He ordered the police back into the car. "And stay there," he demanded. The lieutenant demurred. One look from the mayor sent him scurrying. Mr. Cargan took from his pocket a big cigar, and calmly lighted it.

"Some of them guys out there," he remarked