As in the other cases, a slip of paper was attached to the thing, and he read:
“Don’t you care, old man—it’ll soon be daylight.”
He dropped the clock, and it went bounding merrily under the bed, keeping up its cheerful racket.
“Come out here!” he roared, thrusting himself after it. “Don’t try to dodge me! Don’t try to hide from me!”
He touched it, with a frantic sweep of his arm, but knocked it still farther away.
Then he tore a slat from the bed, and struck at the clock, knocking it out on the farther side. When he tried to back out from beneath the bed, the frame had him pinned across the shoulders, and he was forced to lift it before he could get out. In a burst of anger, he turned it over on its side. Then he got at the clock with the slat.
“Oh, I’ll settle you!” he roared, making a crack at the clock, but missing it entirely. “I’ll destroy you! I’ll hammer the stuffing out of ye! I’ll annihilate ye! Take that—and that! Yow!”
A piece of glass from the clock flew up and cut his face. The coil-spring hopped out, sailed through the air, and settled around his neck.
He dropped the slat, and caught at the spring.
“Come off, here!” he snarled, yanking at it. He cut his neck, and nearly tore his left ear from his head in getting the spring off.