"Again!" I shouted, stamping my foot. I was so angry that I suppose I
was really hardly accountable for what I did.

"I told you you were cowards," I cried. "You can only shoot men in the
back. You don't like me, don't you?" I cried, taunting them. "I'm a
braggart, am I? Yes. I'm a bully, am I? Well, here's your chance. Get
rid of me! Once again now. Make ready," I commanded. "Aim! Fire!"

Again the smoke swept up, and again I had escaped. I remember that I
laughed at them and that the sound was crazy and hysterical, and I
remember that as I laughed I shook out my arms to show them I was
unhurt. And as I did that someone in the cafe cried, "Thank God!" And
another shouted, "That's enough of this damn nonsense," and a big man
with a bushy red beard sprang up and pulled off his hat.

"Now then," he cried. "All together, boys. Three cheers for the little
one!" and they all jumped and shouted like mad people.

They cheered me again and again, although all the time the bullets
from the belfry were striking about them, ringing on the iron tables
and on the sidewalk, and tearing great gashes in the awnings overhead.

And then it seemed as though the sunlight on the yellow buildings and
on the yellow earth of the plaza had been suddenly shut off, and I
dropped into a well of blackness and sank deeper and deeper.

When I looked up the big man was sitting on the floor holding me as
comfortably as though I were a baby, and my face was resting against
his red beard, and my clothes and everything about me smelt terribly