Sam wheeled like a flash. The freckles on his now pale face seemed to stand out like scars.
Without an instant’s hesitation he let go a fist.
It caught the stoker fairly on the side of the jaw. The fellow dropped as if he had been shot, his face burrowing in the mud of the gutter, where he lay motionless for a few seconds.
So astonished were his companions that for the moment they stood gaping. Then the humor of the situation seemed to strike them all at once. All hands broke out into a roar of mirth. That a slender lad should have put out one of their number was to them a huge joke.
Just as soon as he got over his bewilderment at having been so easily handled by a boy, the stoker got to his feet.
He did not immediately follow up his intention of soundly trouncing that forward youngster. This for the very simple reason that the stoker had gone down on his face in the mud. Now he held more than a mouthful of that plastic stuff. Growling, the stoker thrust two fingers of one hand into his mouth, trying to force the sticky mess out.
“Fine, isn’t it?” jeered Sam, cocking his head on one side and leering comically.
“What?” queried one of the stoker’s own mates, for the one who had just struggled to his feet could not speak.
“Mud pies, of course,” grinned Sam. “Healthful, nourishing and great food, for they make you think and work. But only a hog would gulp down a mouthful like that.”
“I’ll—whoof—make you eat some—ugh!—of that—br-r-r!—blamed—waugh!—mud pie—gr-r-r!—o’ your’n!” raged the humiliated stoker as he pawed out the last remnants of that muddy mouthful.