"'Please, ma'am!' says he, 'please? Don't throw things around like
that! Remember they cost money! We can't sell tooth-brushes after
you've strewed the floor with 'em! I ask you please! Please!'

"'Villain!' says she haughtily. 'How dast you put your evil hands
on me?'

"'Hadds,' says I, 'leggo the lady. We pass. Let us retire behind
the prescription counter and bear up like men. There's only one
thing on earth that E. G. W. Scraggs is willin' to admit has him
trimmed to a peak, and you see that same before you now. 'Twas
ever thus since childhood's hour, when my maiden Aunt Susan took
the raisin' of me. Take any form thou wilt but this, and my firm
nerve ain't goin' to tremble; but stacked again this form, my nerve
is floppin' like a hotel wash in a hurricane.'

"So I slung Hadds over my shoulder and we went behind the
prescription counter.

"I tried to distract his mind by tellin' him a funny story.
However, the rip-split-smash outside kind of jumbled three yarns
into one. Besides, Hadds was foamin' so it was all I could do to
keep him from goin' over and kickin' the Major, who still was
oblivious to surroundings, and enwrapped in the gentle art of
sneezin'. Then there come a fearful bump from outside. I knew by
that a showcase was no more.

"'Zeke!' yells Hadds, 'think of somethin' before that woman has us
all in.'