Thompson was naturally unpopular with a certain class in the community. Two barkeepers who had a personal grudge against him, with no doubt excellent reason, lay in ambush for him behind the two bars of the saloon, which stretched along either wall. Thompson entered the room from the street in ignorance of any plot against him until the two men halted him with shot-guns. They had him so surely at their pleasure that he made no effort to reach his revolver, but stood looking from one to the other, and smiling grimly. But his reputation was so great, and their fear of him so actual, that both men missed him, although not twenty feet away, and with shot-guns in their hands. Then Thompson took out his pistol deliberately and killed them. A few years ago he became involved in San Antonio with “Jack” Harris, the keeper of a gambling-house and variety theatre. Harris lay in wait for Thompson behind the swinging doors of his saloon, but Thompson, as he crossed the Military Plaza, was warned of Harris’s hiding-place, and shot him through the door. He was tried for the murder, and acquitted on the ground of self-defence; and on his return to Austin was met at the station by a brass band and all the fire companies. Perhaps inspired by this, he returned to San Antonio, and going to Harris’s theatre, then in the hands of his partner, Joe Foster, called from the gallery for Foster to come up and speak to him. Thompson had with him a desperado named King Fisher, and against him every man of his class in San Antonio, for Harris had been very popular. Foster sent his assistant, a very young man named Bill Sims, to ask Thompson to leave the place, as he did not want trouble. “I have come to have a reconciliation,” said Thompson. “I want to shake hands with my old friend, Joe Foster. Tell him I won’t leave till I see him, and I won’t make a row.” Sims returned with Foster, and Thompson held out his hand. “Joe,” he said, “I have come all the way from Austin to shake hands with you. Let’s make up, and call it off.” “I can’t shake hands with you, Ben,” Foster said. “You killed my partner, and you know well enough I am not the sort to forget it. Now go, won’t you, and don’t make trouble.” Thompson said he would leave in a minute, but they must drink together first. There was a bar in the gallery, which was by this time packed with men who had learned of Thompson’s presence in the theatre, but Fisher and Thompson stood quite alone beside the bar. The marshal of Austin looked up and saw Foster’s glass untouched before him, and said, “Aren’t you drinking with me, Joe?” Foster shook his head. “Well, then,” cried Thompson, “the man who won’t drink with me, nor shake hands with me, fights me.”