Sometimes a fighting jaw merely implies a fighting character: it doesn’t insist upon it.
“D’yer mean I have got to walk?” asked the sour-faced man.
“Sure thing,” said Tommie, “or else you’d like to have me kick you half-way there?”
“Say, what’s got into you this mornin’?” gasped the stranger.
It was Tommie’s turn to scoff. He reached for the strap, smiling derisively.
“You ought to read the papers,” said he; “then you wouldn’t act like such a lobster. Things ain’t run like they used to be, my friend; me and my partner has bought this car, and we’re running it around, getting custom where we can.”
“Ain’t there no more railroad company?” said the lost soul confronting him.
“Nope,” answered Tommie with a yawn. “The hull trolley business is in the hands of private parties like us—and we’re losing money on you by the second. Skip!”
From this on, 809 developed more eccentricities of character. Sometimes she stopped for passengers like a perfectly normal trolley car, but if Jimmie did not like the looks of people as they drew near she bounded ahead like an antelope, when the foot of habit was reaching for her step. Then, at a place of pleasant greenery, refreshing to the city eye, she often moved up and down the block several times while her managers enjoyed the change of scene. This attracted some attention.
They always slowed the car fully to explain to the out-landers the strange, new conditions existing in the trolley world.