"Huah! It's worse than a cranky horse!"
Bruce Browning reached down, took Danny Griswold by the collar, and placed the little fellow behind him.
"Unselfishly trying to save your bacon at the expense of my own!" Browning suavely explained, as Danny began to fume. "Do you want that thing to step on you?"
An electric hansom, which had sailed up the street in an eminently respectable manner, had suddenly and without apparent reason begun to act in an altogether disreputable way. It had veered round, rushed over the crossing, and made a bee-line for the sidewalk, almost running down a party of Frank Merriwell's friends, who were out for an afternoon stroll on the street in the pleasant spring sunshine.
The motorman, who occupied a grand-stand seat in the rear, seemed to have lost control of the automobile. He was excitedly fumbling with his levers, but without being able to bring the carriage to a stop.
The street was crowded with people at the time, and when the electric carriage began to cut its eccentric capers there was a rush for places of safety, while the air was filled with excited cries and exclamations.
Merriwell could see the head of a passenger, a man, through the window of the automobile.
"She's cuc-coming this way again!" shouted Gamp. "Look out, fellows!"
The front tires struck the curbing with such force that the motorman was pitched from his high seat, landing heavily on his head in the gutter.
Bruce Browning was one of the first to reach him.