“‘Smallpox!’ he answered. ‘Wuss nor that, stranger; for the love of peace,’ he contin’ed, ‘keep clear of that feller at the counter. Let him hev his way. You mout as well undertake to cross a crater as him in any of his bullyin’ tantrums. Now mind I’m tellin’ ye. If his eye falls out, don’t laugh at it, don’t betray yer emotions. “‘If he steps on yer corns, take it as if old Jupiter hisself had reached down his foot and trod on ye, and you’ll come out of it better than if you _did_ object, a mi’ty sight.’ “‘Who is he?’ I inquired. “‘Why, that’s Bill Cranebow,—Glass-eyed Bill, they call him. He’s had more fights over that glass eye of his’n than ever a dog had over a sheep’s shank. “‘Everybody’s afeared of him. They hate him wuss than a lawyer does a peacemaker. No one who knows him wants to undertake the job of gettin’ away with him; they’d ruther let it out to strangers. Oh! he’s lightnin’ at a fight, for all he looks so clumsy. What the butcher is with the cleaver, that Glass-eyed Bill is with the bowie-knife. He knows jest where to strike to open a jint or git betwixt two ribs. You’d think to see him at it, he had practiced for twenty years with some old doctor, by the way he can disarrange the “house we live in,” as the poet ses.’ [Illustration: THE MINISTERIAL LOOKING MAN.] “‘Wal, that’s sort of curious,’ I ses; ‘ain’t thar no person around this section that has had any experience at the cuttin’ business? He’s only human, I reckon. If he gits a poke between wind and water he’s as likely to wilt as anybody else, isn’t he?’ I ses, jokin’ly, jest that way. “‘Thunder and mud!’ exclaimed the ministerial-lookin’ man. ‘You’ve bin used to fightin’ with women, I reckon. Lose his strength? You mout as well try to kill the strength of a red pepper cuttin’ it up, as that feller. Why, I’ve seen that Glass-eyed Bill in some of his fights yer, when he was so cut and slashed apart that you could see his in’ards workin’ like a watch. And I’ll be called a down east noodle, if he didn’t stand up to his work like a barber until he got through with his man. He likes to fight in a dark room best, though, ’cause thar’s no chance of gittin’ on the blind side of him thar; and the landlord not long ago fixed up one on purpose to accommodate him, he had so much fightin’ to do. He’ll work a quarrel out of the least thing. Laughin’ at his eye rollin’ off is as certain a way of gettin’ into trouble as runnin’ ag’inst a wasp’s nest. “‘Though he smokes like a coalpit himself, I knowed him to pick a quarrel with a young Georgian and kill him, because he happened to send a whiff of smoke in the direction whar he was settin’. Ever since that, whenever he comes into the room, you’ll see the fellers a-pluckin’ and a-snappin’ thar pipes out of thar mouths and crammin’ ’em into thar pockets or under thar coat-tails—anywhere to git ’em out of sight, like boys who are jest learnin’ the habit when they sight thar dad a-comin’ along.