e, the head car stopped
swingin' off to wind'ard, turned back toward the middle of the road, and
begun to go like smoke. The next instant I felt our machine fairly jump
beneath me. I looked at Jonadab's foot. 'Twas pressed hard down on the
speed lever.

"'You crazy loon!' I screeched. 'You--you--you--Stop it! Take your foot
off that! Do you want to--!'

"I was climbin' over the back of the front seat, my knee pretty nigh on
Bradbury's head. But, would you believe it, that Jonadab man let go of
the wheel with one hand--let GO of it, mind you--and give me a shove
that sent me backward in Henrietta Bassett's lap.

"'Barzilla!' he growled, between his teeth, 'you set where you be
and keep off the quarterdeck. I'm runnin' this craft. I'll beat that
Loveland this time or run him under, one or t'other!'

"As sure as I'm alive this minute, the man in the front car was Tobias
Loveland!

"And from then on--Don't talk! I dream about it nights and wake up with
my arms around the bedpost. I ain't real sure, but I kind of have an
idee that the bedpost business comes from the fact that I was huggin'
the widow some of the time. If I did, 'twa'n't knowin'ly, and she never
mentioned it afterwards. All I can swear to is clouds of dust, and horns
honkin', and telegraph poles lookin' like teeth in a comb, and Jonadab's
face set as the Day of Judgment.

"He kept his foot down on the speed place as if 'twas glued. He shoved
the 'spark'--whatever that is--'way back. Every once in a while he
yelled, yelled at the top of his lungs. What he yelled hadn't no sense
to it. Sometimes you'd think that he was drivin' a horse and next that
he was handlin' a schooner in a gale.

"'Git dap!' he'd whoop. 'Go it, you cripples! Keep her nose right in the
teeth of it! She's got the best of the water, so let her bile! Whe-E-E!'

"We didn't stop at Bayport. Our skipper had made other arrangements.
However, the way I figgered it, we was long past needin' a doctor, and
you can get an undertaker 'most anywhere. We went through the village
like a couple of shootin' stars, Tobias about a length ahead, his hat
blowed off, his hair--what little he's got--streamin' out behind, and
that blessed red buzz wagon of his fairly skimmin' the hummocks and
jumpin' the smooth places. And right astern of him comes Jonadab,
hangin' to the wheel, HIS hat gone, his mouth open, and fillin' the dust
with yells and coughs.

"You could see folks runnin' to doors and front gat