in this
instance was to prove a lamentable one--that elephants, unlike lightning
bugs, carry no tail lamps. Of a sudden Red Hoss was aware of a vast,
indefinite, mouse-colored bulk looming directly in the path before him.
He braked hard and tried to swing out, but he was too close upon the
obstacle to avoid a collision.

With a loud metallic smack the bow of the swerving taxicab, coming up
from the rear, treacherously smote the mastodonic Queenie right where
her wrinkles were thickest. Her knees bent forward, and involuntarily
she squatted. She squatted, as one might say, on all points south.
Simultaneously there was an agonized squeal from Queenie and a crunching
sound from behind and somewhat under her, and the tragic deed was done.
The radiator of Red Hoss' car looked something like a concertina which
had seen hard usage and something like a folded-in crush hat, but very
little, if any, like a radiator.

At seven o'clock next morning, when Mr. Farrell arrived at his
establishment, his stricken gaze fastened upon a new car of his which
had become to all intents and purposes practically two-thirds of a car.
The remnant stood at the curbing, where his service car, having towed it
in, had left it as though the night foreman had been unwilling to give
so complete a ruin storage space within the garage. Alongside the
wreckage was Red Hoss, endeavoring more or less unsuccessfully to make
himself small and inconspicuous. Upon him menacingly advanced his
employer.

"The second time in forty-eight hours for you, eh?" said Mr. Farrell.
"Well, boy, you do work fast! Come on now, and give me the cold facts.
How did the whole front end of this car come to get mashed off?"

Tone and mien alike were threatening. Red Hoss realized there was no
time for extended preliminary remarks. From him the truth came
trippingly on the tongue.

"Boss, man, I ain't aimin' to tell you no lies dis time. I comes clean."

"Come clean and come fast."

"A elephint set down on it."

"What!"

"I sez, suh, a elephint set down on it."

In moments of stress, when tempted beyond his powers of self-control,
Mr. Farrell was accustomed to punctuate physically, as it were, the
spoken word. What he said--all he said--before emotion choked him was:
"Why--you--you--" What he did was this: His right arm crooked upward
like a question mark; it straightened downward like an exclamation
point; his fist made a period, or, as the term goes, a full stop on th