Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/163

 screamed, again and again, with all the power of her lungs.

"Slam her one, Hunk!" calmly suggested the second driver, as he joined his confederate, "or that she-hyena'll have the whole ward buttin' in on this!"

Sadie ducked as Hunk promptly proceeded to slam her one, and Hunk's fist came into violent collision with the box-pillar. Whereupon Sadie screamed louder than ever. So arresting were those screams, in fact, that neither Hunk nor his water-proofed friend had the chance for a second effort. A spindle-legged messenger boy suddenly scurried across the Avenue. A second later a round-eyed German butcher emerged from his shop, with his carving knife and one corner of a ruddy-stained apron still in his hand.

"Whadda yuh doin' t' that rib, anyway?" impersonally inquired the spindle-legged youth, for the two water-proofed figures were now tugging in unison at the woman who still clung to the box-pillar.

"This souse's gotta pay her fare, or come to the station-house!" wrathfully and tactfully responded the man called Hunk. Two other pedestrians had joined the messenger boy and the gory-aproned butcher, and already stood staring at the struggle,