The crowd stood silent, as crowds stand about some drunken man, for the Colonel was drunk with wrath, and wordy with it, talking to himself as drunken men do.

He finished, and the crowd opened a passage through itself to let him pass, and Skinner, who, in apron and bare arms, had viewed his rival's wrath from a safe place on the edge of the group, backed away.

The Colonel, mumbling, caught sight of him, and with one swift motion of the arm grasped him by the shirt band.
"You!" he shouted, pulling the shirt band until Skinner grew purple in the face.

"You! You done it! Why couldn't you buy them fire-extinguishers like a man?
You made me buy up that Dutchman.

I wouldn't 'a' had to do it but for you." He gave the choking butcher an extra shake, and raised his hand to strike him, but again the crowd interfered, and seized the Colonel, and hurried him away.
The butcher stood stupidly and rubbed his neck, waiting for the wits that had been choked out of him to return, and far down the street Mayor Stitz, hearing a noise, came out on his front platform and looked up the street.