"And then She sets her claws in! Right ahead of us a carrermatter was streakin' it hell-bent through an open space, tryin' to get away. We could see th' feller in it leanin' forrard and whalin' th' horse. But, Lord, that caraboo'd a run down a thoroughbred.
"'Sheer off to starboard!' Sly yells. 'What do ye mean, loafin' round th' channel that way, ye blinkety-bling-blanked son of a mess attendant? I report ye to th' Captain of th' Port. To starboard, I tell ye. Port your helm! Hard over! Oh, well,' he says, 'if you want it—Collision bulkheads, boys, I'll have to ram him. Hold hard, all! Whee-eee-eeee!' He hits th' caraboo a couple more, and it seems like we go right through that carrermatter. It just fades away. 'Take that!' yells Sly. 'An' I'll report ye, besides.'
"An' right then, risin' up out of what had been th' carrermatter, I seen a short chunky kind of a man, with a tire hung to one ear, and a handful of spokes stickin' out of one pocket, and a piece of dashboard in one hand. I didn't see him long, but I seen him awful plain. It was Him! 'Looka there!' I whispers—I couldn't talk—an' Terry takes one look, an' he couldn't talk.
"An' then th' Old Man catches sight of us, an' he stands up in th' ruins and shakes th' piece of dashboard at us. 'H'm!' he says. 'H'm-mmm!' That's all. He couldn't talk, neither.
"Right there a street turns off the Escolta, an' I seen it was then or never. 'Sly,' I says, 'can ye turn off here to th' lef'?'
"'Sure,' he says. 'Anywheres. He's steerin' fine now. Whoop-eee-eeee-ee!' Zing! Bing! Sly leans back on th' rope, an' th' caraboo puts his nose down, an' Whoof!—he hits that line of rigs between us an' th' road we needed. Talk about football. Two bumps and a hard swaller, an' we was gallopin' down that side street, with th' racket dyin' away behind us.
"'Keep him goin', Sly,' I says. ''Twas th' Old Man we hit!'
"'Mine Gott!' says Sly, and lights in with th' rope. Th' caraboo tries to fly, but that didn't bother us. We wouldn't a cared if he had. We just hangs on and lets him go it.
"When he did stop it was in front of a s'loon! Funny coincident, warn't it? We seen there was just one thing to do, an' th' mayreener thinks so, too. He slep' through all that, but th' minute we was sneakin' up quiet on a drink he comes to life!
"''As anythink 'appened, mytes?' he asts. We tells him.