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handin’ in my interest with the cutie that way. No, Sirr.
    â€˜I said, “Get out yourself!”
    â€˜He scowled at me like a senator who’s mistaken for a hotel clerk. “Swine—skunk—pigface—hedgehog,” he yelled at me. “Get to hell out of here before I throw you out.”
    â€˜Well, I got up, and I reckon I was abusive some—then I planted him one right on his ugly face—yes, Sirr, slick onhis nasal organ. After that things sure began to hum; the big boy called for his flunkey men, and in they came, about a dozen of them. I hadn’t a darned earthly—I kicked one in the region of the solar plexus and bit another in the leg, but there weren’t no hope from the beginning for yours truly.
    â€˜They ran me out that Temple dive in no time and along the street to the Palace of the Suffet—he was a kind of chief magistrate they have.
    â€˜That Suffet was a beery-looking guy—a cross between a Sheenie and a Wop. They trussed me up like a Noo Year’s goose, and threw me on the floor before his sitdown as if I were a sack of flour. My friend of the tinplate readymades coughed up his yarn quick enough, but not a darned word would they let me say—no, Sirr—they kicked my shins every time I tried to open my mouth. I’ll tell the world there weren’t no sort of justice about that place at all.
    â€˜ “These Barbarian guys sure get more fresh every day,” said the Suffet man. “Shove him in boilin’ oil.” It’s a fact what I’m tellin’ you—and if that’s culture, you can cut me out.
    â€˜Then a lean, cadaverous-looking rube got up; he had a bright little suggestion of his own to make.
    â€˜ “Take a pull, nunk,” he says to the Suffet man. “Have him flayed alive instead; he sure has a nice white skin, and I want another to finish off my book.” Can you beat it?—he wanted my skin to finish his blasted book!
    â€˜Well, that young Carthaginian highbrow gave the word to the guards and they undid my bonds. I wasn’t slow to attain an upright position, you may guess, but he started in running his finger up and down my spine, “Say, nunk,” he cries, all gleeful, “I could write five thousand words on this guy’s back—let me have him.”
    â€˜Now, I wasn’t goin’ to let that bunch of stiffs take my skin without a struggle, and a vague sort of notion came to me how the Professor man had said that the ancients regarded the mad folks as sacred—sort of inhabited by the gods—so I tell you what I did. I started to dance an American can-can right there around that so-called hall of justice in the hope they’d figure I was daft.
    â€˜I never got wise to it if that brainwave fetched them, for all of a sudden pandemonium broke loose—that place becamelike Wall Street on a settling day. Folks burst into the hall hollering for all they were worth. “Make your get-away, boys—the Romans are coming—beat it right now.”
    â€˜I tell you, people, I didn’t wait for no special invitation—all them clever dicks were behaving like they’d gone potty—runnin’ round that hall like chickens do when you come in to pick one for your Sunday dinner. I managed to trip the literary gent who’d took a fancy to my skin, and the others trampled on him, they were that anxious to get out. After that I struck a side door and got into the street.
    â€˜Crikey, what a picture—them Carthaginians were footing it in all directions—and down the street came the Roman Legions, eight abreast. There weren’t no stoppin’ ’em. Shoulder to shoulder, their shields held up in front and torches lighting up their armour. They had taken the little old burg of Carthage by surprise, and no mistake.
    â€˜Say, I was almost sorry for those Cathaginians—it was a merry little hell for them. Tough as they