Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/302

 him, at his cap and his badge, at his bell-punch. Here, then, was the trick he had feared, the defiance he had dreaded. Mr. Richard Spencer was no aristocrat, but this was carrying a joke a little too far.

"Get out of my sight," he growled, between his set teeth. His eyes looked ominous.

"When you've paid your fare, sir."

"I don't propose to pay my fare."

Dick's blood tingled.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said, steadily, "but you'll have to."

Thus far the talk had been low, and not every one could hear what was said. But there was no one in the car who did not perceive that something unusual was going forward.

A man behind him pulled the conductor's coat, and said, in a friendly growl, "Go it easy, young chap; that's the president of the road."

"I know it," Dick said, over his shoulder, in grateful recognition of a kind turn. But he stood like a rock before his contumacious passenger.

Mr. Spencer had put the paper up before his face, but the lines went scalloping across the page, and in his consuming anger he took a grim pleasure in knowing that the object of it stood there defying him. It was fuel to the fire, and when once Mr. Richard Spencer's passion was roused he gave himself over to it with a fierce satisfaction.

Outwardly Dick had kept his self-control. He