"
Stimson gave vent to a dreadful roar.
"Get my revolver--get a hack--get my revolver, do you hear--what the
devil--" His voice became incoherent.
He had always ordered his wife about as if she were a battalion of
infantry, and despite her misery, the training of years forced her to
spring mechanically to obey; but suddenly she turned to him with a
shrill appeal.
"Oh, John--not--the--revolver."
"Confound it, let go of me!" he roared again, and shook her from him.
He ran hatless upon the street. There were a multitude of hacks at the
summer resort, but it was ages to him before he could find one. Then he
charged it like a bull.
"Uptown!" he yelled, as he tumbled into the rear seat.
The hackman thought of severed arteries. His galloping horse distanced a
large number of citizens who had been running to find what caused such
contortions by the little hatless man.
It chanced as the bouncing hack went along near the lake, Stimson gazed
across the calm grey expanse and recognized a color in a bonnet and a
pose of a head. A buggy was traveling along a highway that led to
Sorington. Stimson bellowed--"There--there--there they are--in that
buggy."
The hackman became inspired with the full knowledge of the situation. He
struck a delirious blow with the whip. His mouth expanded in a grin of
excitement and joy. It came to pass that this old vehicle, with its
drowsy horse and its dusty-eyed and tranquil driver, seemed suddenly to
awaken, to become animated and fleet.
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