第53章

"Ez you didn't hunt me up, I allowed you might hev got kinder petrified and dried up down yer, and I reckoned to run down and rattle round a bit and make things lively for ye.I've jist cleared out a newspaper office over thar.They call it the 'Guardi-an,' though it didn't seem to offer much pertection to them fellers ez was in it.In fact, it wasn't ez much a fight ez it orter hev been.It was rather monotonous for me.""But what's the row, Bill?What has happened?" I asked excitedly."Nothin' to speak of, I tell ye," replied Yuba Bill reflectively."I jestmeandered into that shop over there, and I sez, 'I want ter see the man ez runs this yer mill o' literatoor an' progress.' Thar waz two infants sittin' on high chairs havin' some innocent little game o' pickin' pieces o' lead outer pill-boxes like, and as soon ez they seed me one of 'em crawled under his desk and the other scooted outer the back door.Bimeby the door opens again, and a fluffy coyote-lookin' feller comes in and allows that HE is responsible for that yer paper.When I saw the kind of animal he was, and that he hadn't any weppings, I jist laid the Left Bower down on the floor.Then I sez, 'You allowed in your paper that I oughter hev a little sevility knocked inter me, and I'm here to hev it done.You ken begin it now.' With that I reached for him, and we waltzed oncet or twicet around the room, and then I put him up on the mantelpiece and on them desks and little boxes, and took him down again, and kinder wiped the floor with him gin'rally, until the first thing I knowed he was outside the winder on the sidewalk.On'y blamed if I didn't forget to open the winder.Ef it hadn't been for that, it would hev been all quiet and peaceful-like, and nobody hev knowed it.But the sash being in the way, it sorter created a disturbance and unpleasantness OUTSIDE.""But what was it all about?" I repeated."What had he done to you?" "Ye'll find it in that paper," he said, indicating a copy of the"Guardian" that lay on my table with a lazy nod of his head."P'r'aps you don't read it?No more do I. But Joe Bilson sez to me yesterday: 'Bill,'