Looked like the Cap'n was goin' to shed the coop over his head, as you'd shuck a shirt, and I was edgin' away prepared to make a run for it. But right there the elevatin' process stops, and after some violent squirms there comes an outburst of language that would only get the delete sign if I should give it. I could dope out what had happened. That plank seat across one side had caught the Cap'n about where he buckles his belt, and he couldn't budge it any further.
"Want a shoe-horn, Cap'n?" I asks. "Say, next time you try wearin' a kiosk as a slip-on sweater you'd better train down for the act."
"Gr-r-r-r!" says he. "I—I will teach you to play your jokes on me, young whipper-snap."
He does some more writhin', and pretty soon manages to swing open one of the port-holes. With his face up to that, like a deep-sea diver peekin' out o' his copper bonnet, he starts for me, kickin' over the little stove as he gets under way, and tearin' the whole thing loose from the foundation.
Course he's some handicapped by the hobble-skirt effect around his knees, and the weight above his shoulders makes him a bit topheavy; but, at that, he can get over the ground as fast as I can walk backwards.
Must have been kind of a weird sight, there in the moonlight—me bein' pursued up the road by this shack with legs under it, the little tin smoke-pipe wavin' jaunty about nine feet in the air, and the geraniums in the flower-boxes noddin' jerky.
"Say, what do you think you are?" I calls out. "A wooden tank goin' over the top? "
I was sort of wonderin' how long he could keep this up, and what would be the finish, when from behind me I hears this spluttery line of exclamations indicatin' rage. It's Danny, who's got anxious about lettin' me have the use of his coop and has come down to see what's happenin' to it. Well, he saw.
"Hey! Stop him, stop him!" he yells.
"Stop him yourself, Danny," says I.