received the automobile in the small of the back, uttered a yell of
surprise and dismay, performed a few improvised Texas Tommy steps, and
fell in a heap.

In a situation which might have stimulated another to fervid speech,
George Pennicut contented himself with saying "Goo!" He was a man of
few words.

Mrs. Porter stopped the car. From all points of the compass citizens
began to assemble, many swallowing their chewing-gum in their
excitement. One, a devout believer in the inscrutable ways of
Providence, told a friend as he ran that only two minutes before he had
almost robbed himself of this spectacle by going into a moving-picture
palace.

Mrs. Porter was annoyed. She had never run over anything before except
a few chickens, and she regarded the incident as a blot on her
escutcheon. She was incensed with this idiot who had flung himself
before her car, not reflecting in her heat that he probably had a
pre-natal tendency to this sort of thing inherited from some ancestor
who had played "last across" in front of hansom cabs in the streets of
London.

She bent over George and passed experienced hands over his portly form.
For this remarkable woman was as competent at first aid as at anything
else. The citizens gathered silently round in a circle.

"It was your fault," she said to her victim severely. "I accept no
liability whatever. I did not run into you. You ran into me. I have a
jolly good mind to have you arrested for attempted suicide."