ent over the
edge of the station platform, tipping the coach to an angle which sent
all the passengers on the upper side into the laps of those on the
lower.

Aunt Lizzie pitched headlong and with such force that when she struck
Mr. Stott on the mouth with her onyx apple she cut his lip.

"You'll kill somebody with that yet!" Mr. Stott glared at the keepsake.

Aunt Lizzie scrambled back into her seat and looked composedly at the
drop of blood he offered in evidence, on the corner of his handkerchief.

Mr. Appel, who undoubtedly would have gone on through the window when
the coach lurched had it not been for his wife's presence of mind in
clutching him by the coat, demanded in an angry voice--instead of
showing the gratitude she had reason to expect:

"Whatch you doin'? Tearin' the clothes off'n m'back? Wisht you'd leave
me be!"

It had been years since Mr. Appel had spoken to his wife like that. Mrs.
Appel opened her reticule, took out a handkerchief and held it to her
eyes.

In the meantime the side wheels had dropped off the station platform and
the coach had righted itself, but in spite of all that Pinkey and Wallie
could do the leaders swung sharply to the left and dragged the wheel
horses after them down the railroad track.

When the wheels struck the ties, Miss Mattie Gaskett bounded into the
air as if she had been sitting upon a steel coil that had suddenly been
released. She was wearing a tall-crowned hat of a style that had not
been in vogue for some years and as she struck the roof it crackled and
went shut like an accordeon, so that it was of an altogether different
shape when she dropped back to the seat.

"Oh, my!" she exclaimed, blinking in a dazed fashion as she felt of her
hat.

Old Mr. Penrose, who had elongated his naturally long neck preparatory
to looking out the window, also struck the roof and with such force that
his neck was bent like the elbow in a stove-pipe when he came down. He
said such a bad word that Aunt Lizzie Philbrick exclaimed: "Oh, how
dread-ful!" and asked him to remember where he was.

Mr. Penrose replied that he did not care where he was--that if her neck
had been driven into her shoulders a foot she would say something, too.

Mrs. J. Harry Stott and Mr. Budlong, who had bumped heads so hard that
the thud was heard, were eyeing each other in an unfriendly fashion as
they felt of their foreheads, waiting for the lump.

Mr. Stott, who was still patting his lip with h