Its smooth, swift flight became suddenly such a spasm of jars, shivers and thuds that Mallory cried:
"We're off the track."
He was sent flopping down the aisle like a bolster hurled through the car. He brought up with a sickening slam across the seat into which Marjorie had been jounced back with a breath-taking slam. And then Kathleen came flying backwards and landed in a heap on both of them.
Several of the other passengers were just returning from breakfast and they were shot and scattered all over the car as if a great chain of human beads had burst.
Women screamed, men yelled, and then while they were still struggling against the seats and one another, the train came to a halt.
"Thank God, we stopped in time!" Mallory gasped, as he tried to disengage himself and Marjorie from Kathleen.
The passengers began to regain their courage with their equilibrium. Little Jimmie Wellington had flown the whole length of the car, clinging to his wife as if she were Francesca da Rimini, and he Paolo, flitting through Inferno. The flight ended at the stateroom door with such a thump that Mrs. Fosdick was sure a detective had come for her at last, and with a battering ram.
But when Jimmie got back breath enough to talk, he remembered the train-stopping excitement of the day before and called out:
"Has Mrs. Mallory lost that pup again?"
Everybody laughed uproariously at this. People will laugh at anything or nothing when they have been frightened almost to death and suddenly relieved of anxiety.