Forward danced and reeled the “Yanki” baiters below, until they were under the balcony where the little group of Americans sheltered and raged silently. There the orator again spewed forth his contempt upon the alien banner, and again the ranks behind him shrieked their approval of the affront. Miss Polly Brewster, American of Americans, whose great-grandfathers had fought with Herkimer and Steuben,—themselves the sons of women who had stood by the loopholes of log houses and caught up the rifles of their fallen pioneer husbands, wherewith to return the fire of the besieging Mohawks,—ran forward to the railing, snatching her skirt from the detaining grasp of her father. In the corner stood a huge bowl of roses. Gathering both hands full, she leaned forward and flung them, so that they fell in a shower of loveliness upon the insulted flag of her nation. For an instant silence fell upon the “great unwashed” below. Out of it swelled a muttering as the leader made a low, mocking obeisance to the girl, following it with a word that brought a jubilant yelp from his adherents. Stooping, he ladled up in his cupped hand a quantity of gutter filth. Where the flowers had but a moment before fluttered in the folds, he splotched it, smearing star, bar, and blue with its blackness. At the sight, the girl burst into helpless tears, and so stood weeping, openly, bitterly, and unashamed. No brain is so well ordered, no emotion so thoroughly controlled, but that under sudden pressure—click!—the mechanism slips a cog and runs amuck. Just that thing happened inside the Unspeakable Perk’s smooth-running, scientific brain upon incitement of his flag’s desecration and his lady’s grief. To her it seemed that he shot past her horizontally like a human dart. The next second he was over the railing, had swung from a branch of the neighboring tree to the trunk, and leaped to the ground, all in one movement of superhuman agility. To the mob his exploit was apparently without immediate significance. Perhaps they didn’t notice the descent; or perhaps those few who saw were so astonished at the apparition of a chunky tree-man with protuberant eyes scrambling down upon them in the manner of an ape, that they failed to appreciate what it might portend of trouble. The hermit landed solidly on his feet a few yards from Urgante, the flag bearer. With a berserker yell, he rushed. Taken by surprise, the assailed one still had time to lift the heavy staff. As quickly, the American lowered his head and dove. It may not have been magnificent; it certainly was not war by the rules; but it was eminently effective. To say that the leader went down would be absurdly inadequate. He simply crumpled. Over and over he rolled on the cobbles, while the smirched flag flew clear of his grasp, and fell on the farther sidewalk. “Wow!” yelled Cluff, leaping into the air. “Football! That cost him a couple of ribs. Hey, Rube!”