button peeled the skin off Toddles' knuckles, but the jab doubled the
conductor forward, and coincident with Hawkeye's winded grunt, the
lantern in his hand sailed ceilingwards, crashed into the center lamps
in the roof of the car, and down in a shower of tinkling glass,
dripping oil and burning wicks, came the wreckage to the floor.

There was a yell from Nulty; but Toddles hung on like grim death.
Hawkeye was bawling fluent profanity and seeing red. Toddles heard one
and sensed the other--and he clung grimly on. He was all doubled up
around Hawkeye's knees, and in that position Hawkeye couldn't get at
him very well; and, besides, Toddles had his own plan of battle. He
was waiting for an extra heavy lurch of the car.

It came. Toddles' muscles strained legs and arms and back in concert,
and for an instant across the car they tottered, Hawkeye staggering in
a desperate attempt to maintain his equilibrium--and then
down--speaking generally, on a heterogeneous pile of express parcels;
concretely, with an eloquent squnch, on a crate of eggs, thirty dozen
of them, at forty cents a dozen.

Toddles, over his rage, experienced a sickening sense of disaster, but
still he clung; he didn't dare let go. Hawkeye's fists, both in an
effort to recover himself and in an endeavor to reach Toddles, were
going like a windmill; and Hawkeye's threats were something terrifying
to listen to. And now they rolled over, and Toddles was underneath;
and then they rolled over again; and then a hand locked on Toddles'
collar, and he was yanked, terrier-fashion, to his feet.

His face white and determined, his fists doubled, Toddles waited for
Hawkeye to get up--the word "run" wasn't in Toddles' vocabulary. He
hadn't long to wait.

Hawkeye lunged up, draped in the broken crate--a sight. The road
always prided itself on the natty uniforms of its train crews, but
Hawkeye wasn't dressed in uniform then--mostly egg yolks. He made a
dash for Toddles, but he never reached the boy. Bob Donkin was between
them.

"Cut it out!" said Donkin coldly, as he pushed Toddles behind him.
"You asked for it, Reynolds, and you got it. Now cut it out!"

And Hawkeye "cut it out." It was pretty generally understood that Bob
Donkin never talked much for show, and Bob Donkin was bigger than
Toddles, a whole lot bigger, as big as Hawkeye himself. Hawkeye "cut
it out."

Funny, the egg part of it? Well, perhaps. But the fire wasn't. True,
they got it