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Here the Colonel looked up and tried to say something, but the Judge went on imperturbably:

“Now, I take it that it’s strictly providential that a man gets bald on top of his head first, because, if he must get bald, it is best to get bald where it can be covered up.”

“By jinks, that’s a fact!” said Foster, in high admiration of the Judge’s ratiocination. Steve was specially pleased, and, drawing a neck-yoke from a barrel standing near, pounded the floor vigorously.

“Talking about being bald,” put in Foster, “reminds me of a scheme of mine, which is to send no one out to fight Indians but bald men. Think how powerless they’d be in”—-

The talk now drifted off to Indians, politics and religion, edged round to the war, when the grave Judge began telling Ridings and Robie just how “Kilpatrick charged along the Granny White Turnpike,” and, on a sheet of wrapping-paper, was showing where Major John Dilrigg fell. “I was on his left, about thirty yards, when I saw him throw up his hand”—-

Foster in a low voice was telling something to the Professor and two or three others, which made them whoop with uncontrollable merriment, when the roaring voice of big Sam Walters was heard outside, and a moment later he rolled into the room, filling it with his noise. Lottridge, the watchmaker, and Erlberg, the German baker, came in with him.

“Hello, hello, hello! All here, are yeh?”

“All here waiting for you–and the turnkey,” said Foster.

“Well, here I am. Always on hand, like a sore thumb in huskin’ season. What’s goin’ on here? A game, hey? Hello, Gordon, it’s you, is it? Colonel, I owe you several for last night. But what the devil yo’ got your cap on fur, Colonel? Ain’t it warm enough here for yeh?”

The desperate Colonel, who had snatched up his cap when he heard Walters coming, grinned painfully, pulling his straggly red and white beard nervously. The strain was beginning to tell on his iron nerves. He removed the cap, and with a few muttered words went back to the game, but there was a dangerous gleam in his fishy blue eyes, and the grizzled tufts of red hair above his eyes lowered threateningly. A man who is getting swamped in a game of checkers is not in a mood to bear pleasantly any remarks on his bald head.

“Oh! don’t take it off, Colonel,” went on his tormentor, hospitably. “When a man gets as old as you are, he’s privileged to wear his cap. I wonder if any of you fellers have noticed how the Colonel is shedding his hair.”

The old man leaped up, scattering the men on the checkerboard, which flew up and struck Squire Gordon in the face, knocking him off his stool. The old Colonel was ashy pale, and his eyes glared out from under his huge brow like sapphires lit by flame. His spare form, clothed in a seedy Prince Albert frock, towered with a singular dignity. His features worked convulsively a moment, then he burst forth like the explosion of a safety valve:

“Shuttup, damyeh!”

And then the crowd whooped, roared and rolled on the counters and barrels, and roared and whooped again. They stamped and yelled, and ran around like fiends, kicking the boxes and banging the coal scuttle in a perfect pandemonium of mirth, leaving the old man standing there helpless in his wrath, mad enough to shoot. Steve was just preparing to seize the old man from behind, when Squire Gordon, struggling to his feet among the spittoons, cried out, in the voice of a colonel of Fourth of July militia:

“H-O-L-D!”

Silence was restored, and all stood around in expectant attitudes to hear the Squire’s explanation. He squared his elbows, shoved up his sleeves, puffed out his fat cheeks, moistened his lips, and began pompously: “Gentlemen”—-

“You’ve hit it; that’s us,” said some of the crowd in applause.

“Gentlemen of Rock River, when, in the course of human events, rumor had blow’d to my ears the history of the checker-playing of Rock River, and when I had waxed Cerro Gordo, and Claiborne, and Mower, then, when I say to my ears was borne the clash of resounding arms in Rock River, the emporium of Rock County, then did I yearn for more worlds to conquer, and behold, I buckled on my armor and I am here.”