Page:Frank Packard - On the Iron at Big Cloud.djvu/92

 went the color of a semaphore arm—a deep red one. Spitzer was suffering acutely.

"Well, well," prodded Regan. "Release the air! Take the brakes off!"

"I'm," began Spitzer shamefacedly, "I'm" He gulped down his Adam's apple hard, twice, and then it came away with a rush: "I'm going to get married to Merla Swenson."

Regan's jaw sagged like the broken limb of a tree, and his eyes fairly popped out and hung down over the roll of his cheeks. Then gradually, very gradually, he began to double up and unhandsome contortions afflicted his facial muscles. Spitzer! Spitzer was enough! But Spitzer and Merla Swenson! Six-foot-heavy-boned-long-armed Swedish-maiden Merla! Oh, contrariety, variety, perversity of life! "Haw!" he roared suddenly. "Haw, haw! Haw, haw, haw!" And againonly louder. The turner and a helper or two poked their noses out of the roundhouse doors to get a line on the disturbance.

Can a stone float? Can a feather sink? Astonishing, bewildering, dumfounding, impossible, oh, yes; but it was also very funny. It was the funniest thing that Regan had ever heard in his life.

"Haw, haw!" he screamed. "Ho, ho! Haw, haw!"

His paunch shook like jelly, and he held both hands to his sides to ease the pain. He straightened up preparatory to going off into another burst of guffaws, and then, with his mouth already opened to begin, he stopped as though he had been stunned. Spitzer was