Puffing like a pony engine, the Dutch boy dashed up and grasped the donkey’s tail with both hands, shouting:
“Vot der madder vos mit you, ain’d id? I can’t run avay you from uf you vant me to! Now, don’d try any uf my tricks on yourseluf, for uf you do, I vill——Wow!”
Up flew the donkey’s heels once more, and the little beast lifted the fat lad and sent him whirling over in the air.
The creature had seemed to kick with the force of a pile driver, and he fairly flung the Dutch boy into the air.
Down came the lad, plunging headfirst into a garbage barrel that had been standing on the curb, awaiting the arrival of the garbage gatherers.
Into the barrel plunged the boy. Fortunately the barrel was not quite half filled. Down he went till he stuck fast, his fat legs kicking wildly in the air.
The youth who had stopped the donkey now released the animal and started to extricate the boy from the barrel.
A tall, awkward youth, who had been with the parade, forming one of the band, rushed up, brass horn in hand.
“Darn my pertaturs!” he shouted, dropping the instrument. “That ’air donkey will be the death of that feller yit!”
Then he made a grab at the legs of the lad in the barrel and received a kick behind the ear that knocked him over in a twinkling. He struck in a sitting position on the ground, and there he remained, rubbing his head and looking dazed.