 its glare upon all things. He
became so sharp that he believed in nothing. To him the police were always
actuated by malignant impulses and the rest of the world was composed, for the
most part, of despicable creatures who were all trying to take advantage of him
and with whom, in defense, he was obliged to quarrel on all possible occasions.
He himself occupied a down-trodden position which had a private but distinct
element of grandeur in its isolation.
    The greatest cases of aggravated idiocy were, to his mind, rampant upon the
front platforms of all of the street cars. At first his tongue strove with these
beings, but he eventually became superior. In him grew a majestic contempt for
those strings of street cars that followed him like intent bugs.
    He fell into the habit, when starting on a long journey, of fixing his eye
on a high and distant object, commanding his horses to start and then going into
a trance of observation. Multitudes of drivers might howl in his rear, and
passengers might load him with opprobrium, but he would not awaken until some
blue policeman turned red and began to frenziedly seize bridles and beat the
soft noses of the responsible horses.
    When he paused to contemplate the attitude of the police toward himself and
his fellows, he believed that they were the only men in the city who had no
rights. When driving about, he felt that he was held liable by the police for
anything that might occur in the streets, and that he was the common prey of all
energetic officials. In revenge, he resolved never to move out of the way of
anything, until formidable circumstances, or a much larger man than himself
forced him to it.
    Foot passengers were mere pestering flies with an insane disregard for their
legs and his convenience. He could not comprehend their desire to cross the
streets. Their madness smote him with eternal amazement. He was continually
storming at them from his throne. He sat aloft and denounced their frantic
leaps, plunges, dives and straddles.
    When they would thrust at, or parry, the noses of his champing horses,
making them swing their heads and move their feet, and thus disturbing a stolid
dreamy repose, he swore at the men as fools, for he himself could perceive that
Providence had caused it clearly to be written, that he and his team had the
unalienable right to stand in the proper path of the sun chariot, and if they so
minded, obstruct its mission or take a wheel off.
    And if the god-driver had had a desire to step down, put up his
flame-
