“Did he break his neck?” asked another.
“I don’t know; but it was just as bad. He fell faster than the top of the giant’s head and the giant’s brains spilt on top of him and drownded him.”
“Drowned him, you mean,” corrected Mr. Porter. But the correction was not noticed. The boys were loudly expressing their opinions of the story. Some liked it; others were displeased.
“Served him right for having the big-head,” declared Joe Moffett wisely.
“You bet it did,” agreed Vincent Pyle.
“Didn’t either,” shouted Frank Bowler. “That’s a crazy story. You can’t tell me. Why, do you think a boy who could stand on a giant’s ear and cut off the top of his head with a axe as big as forty trees would get in such a scrape?”
“No,” replied several. “Yes,” declared others.
“You’re crazy,” said Bad, addressing the latter. “Why, he’d ’a’ fell in the giant’s pocket, or caught hold o’ one of his whiskers, or hung onto his watch chain.”
“That’s a good argument,” pronounced Dr. Byrd. “What have you to say to it, Hal?”
“Bad’s wrong,” replied the story teller.