Over to the left of me, under a dining-table with its legs spraddled up, I heard a grunt—a disgusted grunt. It was a familiar grunt, a grunt that belonged to Mark.
“H-h-hurt,” says he, sarcastic-like, but cool as a cucumber, only stuttering more than usual. “H-h-hurt! Me? Naw; I’m comfortable as a ulcerated t-t-tooth. Hey, you,” says he to somebody down under the rubbish, “quit a-kickin’ me in the s-s-stummick.”
I knew he was all right then, and began figgering about Tallow Martin and Plunk Smalley. In a minnit both of them came sort of oozing out from amongst things looking like they’d sat down for a friendly chat with a cyclone.
“Mother’ll be mad about these pants,” says Plunk.
“There hain’t much pants left for her to get mad about,” says Tallow, angry-like and rubbing at his shoulder. “What you want to do is get a barrel.”
“W-what you want to do,” says Mark Tidd, “is g-git me out of here. There’s a feller keeps k-k-kickin’ me in the ribs and somebody t-t-tried to ram a table-leg into my e-e-ear.”
Folks was digging their way out all around us now, and nobody seemed hurt particular, though some was making an awful fuss, specially a stout lady that had lost a breastpin. We began mining for Mark, and pretty soon we got down to where we could see him. He was the beat of anything I ever saw. Somehow he’d wriggled so as to get his head on a soft leather bag that somebody’d brought into the diner—most likely some woman. One arm was pinned down, but the other was free, and what do you think he was doing with it? Eating! Yes, sir; eating! He had two bananas in his pocket that he’d grabbed off the table just before the smash-up, and there he lay, gobbling away as calm as an iron hitching-post. It made me mad.
“You’d eat,” says I, “if Gabriel was tooting his horn!”
“D-d-didn’t know what was goin’ to h-happen,” says he, “so I th-thought I’d g-git what enjoyment there was t-t-to it.”
We hauled him out, and it took all three of us. Heavy? I bet he weighs two hundred pounds. We got his head and shoulders free first and tried to drag the rest of him from under, but he wouldn’t drag. Why, each one of his legs weighs as much as I do. He has to have all his clothes made special. I bet I could rip one of his pant-legs down the front, put sleeves in it, and wear it for an overcoat.