swelled higher and higher. The crowd increased. Several more men and
boys were on the outskirts. An ally pressed through the crowd to
Anderson's side.

"Now, boys," he proclaimed, and for a moment his thin squeak weighted
with importance gained a hearing--"now, boys," said the barber, "this
little feller's father is an extinguished new denizen of Banbridge,
and you ain't treatin' of him with proper disrespect. Now--" But then
his voice was drowned in a wilder outburst than ever. The little
crowd of men and boys went fairly mad with hysterical joy of mirth,
as an American crowd will when once overcome by the humor of the
situation in the midst of their stress of life. They now laughed at
the little barber and the boy. The old familiar butt had joined
forces with the new ones.

"They have formed a trust," said Amidon, deserting his partisanship,
now that it had assumed this phase of harmless jocularity.

But the boy at bay, as the laughter at his expense increased, was
fairly frantic. He lost what he had hitherto retained, his
self-possession. "I tell you I did!" he suddenly screamed out, in a
sweet screech, like an angry bird, which commanded the ears of the
crowd from its strangeness. "I tell you I did have an elephant, I did
ride him, and I did have a circus every Saturday afternoon, so there!"

The "so there" was tremendous. The words vanished in the sound. The
boyish expression denoting triumphant climax became individual, the
language of one soul. He fired the words at them all like a charge of
shot. There was a pause of a second, then the laughter and mocking
were recommencing. But Anderson took advantage of the lull.