"'Your humour doesn't appeal to me, Billings. Of course, you have
the privilege of working it out.' Oh, Glory, the 'Privilege!'

"Heegan nodded at this, and I realized what I was against.

"'Your honour,' says I with sarcastic refinements, 'science tells us
that a perfect vacuum ain't possible, but after watching you I know
better, and for you, Mr. Workingman's Friend,--us to the floor,' and
I run at Heegan.

"Pshaw! I never got started, nor I didn't rightfully come to till I
rested in the workhouse, which last figger of speech is a pure and
beautiful paradox.

"I ain't dwellin' with glee on the next twenty-six days--ten dollars
and costs, at four bits a day, but I left there saturated with such
hatreds for Heegan that my breath smelted of 'em.

"I wanders down the river front, hoping the fortunes of war would
deliver him to me dead or alive, when the thought hit me that I'd
need money. It was bound to take another ten and costs shortly after
we met, and probably more, if I paid for what I got, for I figgered
on distendin' myself with satisfaction and his features with
uppercuts. Then I see a sign, 'Non-Union men wanted--Big wages.' In
I goes, and strains my langwidge through a wire net at the cashier.

"'I want them big wages,' says I.

"'What can you do?'