It was late in the evening when I reached the place.
I heard one or two shots in the bar-room as I came up, and I disliked
going in. But there was nowhere else to go, and it was a cold night.
Inside the room were several men, who, including the bartender, were
wearing the kind of smile worn by men who are making believe to like
what they don't like. A shabby individual in a broad hat with a cocked
gun in each hand was walking up and down the floor talking with strident
profanity. He had evidently been shooting at the clock, which had two or
three holes in its face.
He was not a "bad man" of the really dangerous type, the true man-killer
type, but he was an objectionable creature, a would-be bad man, a bully
who for the moment was having things all his own way. As soon as he saw
me he hailed me as "Four eyes," in reference to my spectacles, and said,
"Four eyes is going to treat." I joined in the laugh and got behind the
stove and sat down, thinking to escape notice. He followed me, however,
and though I tried to pass it off as a jest this merely made him more
offensive, and he stood leaning over me, a gun in each hand, using very
foul language. He was foolish to stand so near, and, moreover, his heels
were close together, so that his position was unstable.
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