“Drive on!” says Clarissa, pretty average vinegary. “Haven't you made trouble enough for us already, you dreadful man? Drive on!”
Hadn't I made trouble enough! What do you think of that?
“You want to drown us!” says Miss Todd, continuing her chatty remarks. “I see it all! It's a plot between you and that murderer. I give you warning; if we reach the hotel, my brother and I will commence suit for damages.”
My temper's fairly long-suffering, but 'twas raveling some by this time.
“Commence suit!” I says. “I don't care WHAT you commence, if you'll commence to keep quiet now!” And then I give her a few p'ints as to what her brother had done, heaving in some personal flatteries every once in a while for good measure.
I'd about got to thirdly when James give a screech and p'inted. And, if there wa'n't Lonesome in the launch, headed right for us, and coming a-b'iling! He'd run her along abreast of the beach and turned in at the upper end of the Cut-Through.
You never in your life heard such a row as there was in that wagon. Clarissa and me yelling to Lonesome to keep off—forgitting that he was stone deef and dumb—and James vowing that he was going to be slaughtered in cold blood. And the Greased Lightning p'inted just so she'd split that cart amidships, and coming—well, you know how she can go.
She never budged until she was within ten foot of the flat, and then she sheered off and went past in a wide curve, with Lonesome steering with one hand and shaking his pitchfork at Todd with t'other. And SUCH faces as he made-up! They'd have got him hung in any court in the world.
He run up the Cut-Through a little ways, and then come about, and back he comes again, never slacking speed a mite, and running close to the shoal as he could shave, and all the time going through the bloodiest kind of pantomimes. And past he goes, to wheel 'round and commence all over again.
Thinks I, “Why don't he ease up and lay us aboard? He's got all the weapons there is. Is he scart?”