"Why, she's stuck, that's all. Drive your wedge—" Jerry's words ended in an agonized yelp; he began to paw blindly. "You did that a-purpose."
"Did what?"
"Kicked sawdust in my eyes. I saw you!"
Mr. Linton's voice when he spoke held that same sinister note of restrained ferocity which had characterized it heretofore. "When I start kicking I won't kick sawdust into your eyes! I'll kick your eyes into that sawdust. That's what I'll do. I'll stomp 'em out like a pair of grapes."
"You try it! You try anything with me," Jerry chattered, in a simian frenzy. "You've got a bad reputation at home; you're a malo hombre—a side-winder, you are, and your bite is certain death. That's what they say. Well, ever see a Mexican hog eat a rattler? That's me—wild hog!"
"'Wild hog.' What's wild about you?" sneered the other. "You picked the right animal but the wrong variety. Any kind of a hog makes a bad partner."
For a time the work proceeded in silence, then the latter speaker resumed: "You said I was a dam' something or other. What was it?" The object of this inquiry maintained an offensive, nay an insulting, silence. "A what?" Linton persisted.
Quirk looked up through his mask of sawdust. "If you're gettin' tired again why don't you say so? I'll wait while you rest." He opened his eyes in apparent astonishment, then he cried: "Hello! Why, it's rainin'."
"It ain't raining," Tom declared.
"Must be—your face is wet." Once more the speaker cackled shrilly in a manner intended to be mirthful, but which was in reality insulting beyond human endurance. "I never saw moisture on your brow, Tom, except when it rained or when you set too close to a fire."