"Don't get 'uffy; don't get 'uffy," said the brakey, soothingly. "Lemme tell you somethin'. See them hay-boxes over there on the corner o' the car?"
"Hay-boxes!" exclaimed Fatty, and he looked at me in surprise.
"Come over 'n' look at 'em."
We followed him to the end of the car, and there, true enough, after he had lifted the lid, was a most comfortable hay-box, nearly full of nice soft hay.
Fatty was almost wild with delight, and patting me on the back, said:
"W'y, Cig, this is a perfect palace-car, ain't it! Gosh!"
The brakeman held his lantern while I got into the box. The opening was not very large, hardly more than a foot wide—plenty large enough for me, it is true, but I was much smaller than Fatty. When he tried to get in there was some trouble. His head and shoulders went through all right, but then he stopped, for his paunch was the broadest part of him, and he complained that "it pinched ter'bly." Exactly what to do was a poser, but finally he nerved himself for another squeeze. He twisted, slipped, and grunted, and at last had to beg me to hold his head and steer him, so helpless had his exertions made him. I guided him as best I could, and pretty soon he came "ka-plunk," as he called it, on the hay. The brakey closed the lid and left.
Fatty had hardly settled himself before he began to wonder how he would get out in the morning.
"By gosh!" he said, "p'r'aps I'll jus' have to stay here, 'n' they'll carry me right over to the stock-yards. Wouldn't I be a great steer, eh?"
But I was too tired to speculate, and in a few minutes was asleep. What Fatty did for the next fifty miles I can't say, but in about two hours he cruelly awakened me and asked for a match.