Even so, he improvised several new lines and some effective stage business before he was overpowered by numbers and weight.
The brothers Poole were regarded with much disfavor by Undersheriff Barton, who made the arrest; but their appearance bore out their story.
It was plain that some one had battered them.
Mr.Johnson quite won the undersheriff's esteem by his seemly bearing after the arrest.

He accepted the situation with extreme composure, exhibiting small rancor toward his accusers, refraining from counter-comment to their heated descriptive analysis of himself; he troubled himself to make no denials.
"I'll tell my yarn to the judge," he said, and walked to jail with his captors in friendliest fashion.
These circumstances, coupled with the deputy's experienced dislike for the complaining witnesses and a well-grounded unofficial joy at their battered state, won favor for the prisoner.

The second floor of the jail was crowded with a noisy and noisome crew.

Johnson was taken to the third floor, untenanted save for himself, and ushered into a quiet and pleasant corner cell, whence he might solace himself by a view of the street and the courthouse park.

Further, the deputy ministered to Mr.Johnson's hurts with water and court-plaster, and a beefsteak applied to a bruised and swollen eye.