The ruffian did not answer. He accelerated.
“Are you going to be naughty? You’re wrong, my friend,” said Ralph. “You must have seen in the papers the care I took of you. I never whispered a word about you; and the consequence is that everybody is accusing me of being the leader of the gang. Me! An inoffensive passenger who only did his best to save everybody. Come, comrade, take a pull at the reins and slow down.”
The road was winding down a defile, on one side the walls of the cliff, on the other a parapet which ran along the top of another cliff which dropped sheer to a torrent beneath. Very narrow, it was made narrower still by a street-car line. Ralph decided that the situation was reversible. Standing nearly upright he had a better view of the road than the driver as they came round each turn. Of a sudden he raised himself to his full height, bent down, opened his arms, passed them to the right and left of his enemy, dropped down heavily on him and over his shoulder seized the wheel with both hands. [[93]]
The startled ruffian yielded a little as he stammered: “Cristi! The blighter’s mad! Damnation! He’s going to pitch us into the ravine. Loose me, you fool!”
He tried to free himself but the two arms gripped him like a sheath.
Ralph laughed and said: “You’ve got to choose, my dear sir, the ravine or getting smashed up by the car. Look! There it comes bucketting along to meet you. You must stop, my friend. If you don’t——”
In truth the heavy car came round a corner sixty yards away. At the pace at which they were moving the stop must be instantaneous. The driver grasped this and put on the brakes, while Ralph bent down over the wheel and brought the auto to a standstill on the two rails of the car line. The two vehicles came to a stop nose to nose.
The driver was still raging; he cried: “Cristi de Cristi! Who the hell is this blighter? Ah, you shall pay for this!”
“Make out your bill. Have you got a fountain pen? No? Then, if you don’t mean to spend the night in front of the car let’s get out of the way.”
He held out his hand to the girl, who refused his help and sprang down and stood waiting by the side of the road. The passengers on the car began to grow impatient. The driver and conductor shouted. Ralph [[94]]and the ruffian started to get the auto out of the way; and as soon as it was clear the car went on.