Were they all hit just before eating ?
NAF:
Close. Arthur Philip Deodat…much closer alphabetically to Dent. 
I’ve read this. It’s part of a series. Er, was it reprinted in Mountain Magic?
Yep! By Kuttner.
Too bad Robots Have No Tails is out of print. It’d make a nice Kuttner companion piece. Very oddball science fiction.
Your story sounds a lot like “See You Later,” one of Henry Kuttner’s “Hogbens” stories.
“Saunk Hogben, the narrator of the story, finally solves the feud by splitting himself into two billion, two hundred and fifty million, nine hundred and fifty nine thousand nine hundred and nineteen parts, travelling forwards in time, standing in front of every person in the world, handing each of those people a stick of firewood and then spitting in their faces.”
(Source)
That’s the one I was thinking of. Whole series is in Mountain Magic. Good book.
Huh, one of the reviewers for this book on the Amazon site is one of the collected authors (Ryk E. Spoor – that has to be a pen name) of the book.
You guys totally solved it. Thanks!
And after Dent too, which helps.
Thanks for getting it. I’m sorry about the delay, but when I went to look at my bookshelf I was unable to find the anthology that contained this story-- so I failed to deliver. 
Shucks!