"Don't you wish you knew?"
Tolliver stooped, grasping the man's shoulders. In each fist he clenched bunches of wet cloth. In a sort of desperation he commenced to shake the bundled figure.
"You tell me where you been——"
"NT. NT. NT."
Joe leered.
"Joe! You got to tell me where you been."
The pounding took Tolliver's strength. He crouched lower in an effort to avoid it, but each blow struck as hard as before, forcing into his brain word after word that he passionately resented. Places, hours, minutes—the details of this vital passage of two trains in the unfriendly night.
"Switch whichever arrives first, and hold until the other is through."
It was difficult to understand clearly, because Joe's laughter persisted, crashing against Tolliver's brain as brutally as the sounder.
"You got to tell me if you been bothering Sally."