almost a run. I stripped off my coat and flung it away, opened my
collar, and unbuttoned my waistcoat. And at last, puffing and steaming
like a locomotive engine, I burst into a thin crowd of idlers on the
outskirts of the town, and flourished the pardon crazily above my head,
yelling, "Cut him down!--cut him down!"

Then, as every one stared in blank amazement and nobody said anything, I
found time to look about me, marveling at the oddly familiar appearance
of the town. As I looked, the houses, streets, and everything seemed to
undergo a sudden and mysterious transposition with reference to the
points of the compass, as if swinging round on a pivot; and like one
awakened from a dream I found myself among accustomed scenes. To be
plain about it, I was back again in Swan Creek, as right as a trivet!

It was all the work of That Jim Peasley. The designing rascal had
provoked me to throw a confusing somersault, then bumped against me,
turning me half round, and started on the back track, thereby inciting
me to hook it in the same direction. The cloudy day, the two lines of
telegraph poles, one on each side of the track, the entire sameness of
the landscape to the right and left--these had all conspired to prevent
my observing that I had put about.

When the excursion train returned from Flatbroke that evening the
passengers were told a little story at my expense. It was just what they
needed to cheer them up a bit after what they had seen; for that
flip-flap of mine had broken the neck of Jerome Bowles seven miles away!