le man's valise, grabbed his arm, and rushed him across the
platform and into the pung's rear seat. And the instant he had scooped
the reins from the dasher he flung himself into the front seat and
was away up the road, larruping his horse and ducking the snow-cakes
that hurtled from the animal's hoofs.

"Look here! I--I--" gasped the little man, prodding him behind.

"It's all right, elder!" bellowed Hiram. "You wait till we get there
and it will be made all right. Set clus' and hold on, that's all now!"

"But, look here, I want to go to Smyrna tavern!"

"Good for you!" Hiram cried. "Set clus' and you'll get there!" It
seemed, after all, that ill repute had not spread far. His spirits
rose, and he whipped on at even better speed.

"If this isn't life or death," pleaded the little man, "you needn't
hurry so." Several "thank-you-marms" had nearly bounced him out.

"Set clus'," advised the driver, and the little man endeavored to
obey the admonition, clinging in the middle of the broad seat.

Hiram did not check speed even on the slope of the hill leading into
the village, though the little man again lifted voice of fear and
protest. So tempestuous was the rush of the pung that the loafers
in Broadway's store hustled out to watch. And they saw the runners
strike the slush-submerged plank-walk leading across the square,
beheld the end of the pung flip, saw the little man rise high above
the seat with a fur robe in his arms and alight with a yell of mortal
fright in the mushy highway, rolling over and over behind the
vehicle.

Helping hands of those running from the store platform picked him
up, and brought his hat, and stroked the slush out of his eyes so
that he could see Hiram Look sweeping back to recover his passenger.

"You devilish, infernal jayhawk of a lunatic!" squealed the little
man. "Didn't I warn you not to drive so fast?"

Hiram's jaw dropped at the first blast of that irreligious outbreak.
But the white-lawn tie reassured him. There was no time for argument.
Before those loafers was no fit place. He grabbed up the little man,
poked him into the pung, held him in with one hand and with the other
drove furiously to the tavern porch. With equal celerity he hustled
him into the office.

"You ain't in any condition to talk business jest now till you're
slicked off a little, elder," he began in tones of abject apology.

"You bet your jeeroosly life I'm not!" cried the little man in a
perfect frenzy o