Smelts. "Fer God's sake git out
of his way! Dan! Dan Lewis! Help! Help!"
Mr. Smelts, infuriated at the interference, had pinioned Nance's arms
behind her and was about to beat her crowned head against the wall when
Dan rushed into the hall.
"Throw him out the front door!" screamed Nance. "Help me push him down
the steps!"
Mr. Smelts' resistance was fierce, but brief. His legs were much drunker
than his arms, and when the two determined youngsters flung themselves
upon him and shoved him out of the door, he lost his balance and fell
headlong to the street below.
By this time the party had swarmed into the hall and out on the steps
and Mr. Demry's gentle, frightened face could be seen peering over their
decorated heads. The uproar had brought other tenants scurrying from the
upper floors, and somebody was dispatched for a police. Dense and
denser grew the crowd, and questions, excuses, accusations were heard on
every side.
"They've done killed him," wailed a woman's voice above the other noises.
It was Mrs. Smelts who, with all the abandonment of a bereft widow, cast
herself beside the huddled figure lying motionless in the snow.
"What's all this row about?" demanded Cockeye, forcing his way to the
front and assuming an air of stern authority.
"They've killed my Jim!" wailed Mrs. Smelts. "I'm goin' to have the
law on 'em!"
The policeman, with an impolite request that she stop that there
caterwauling, knelt on the wet pavement and made a hasty diagnosis
of the case.
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