True to its barometrical
functions, my throat was predicting a storm. It came.
He looked at me for a second, grew red in the face, then catching me by
the collar, gave me a yank, that made me see forty stars, and said,
"B-b-b-last you! wh-wh-at d-d-o y-y-ou m-mean b-b-y m-mocking me? I'll
sm-sm-ash y-y-our b-b-b-lamed r-r-ed head.'"
Speech left me entirely then, and I am afraid I would have been most
beautifully thumped, had not Sanders, the trainmaster, come over and
stopped him. He called him "De Armand," and I then knew he was the
second trick despatcher. After many efforts De Armand told Sanders how I
had mocked him. Sanders didn't know me and the war clouds began to
gather again; but Johnson, the conductor of the wrecker, came over and
said, "Hold on there, De Armand, that kid ain't mocking you; he stammers
so bad at times that he kicks a hole in the floor. Why, I have seen him
start to say something to my engineer pulling out of Mankato, and he
would finish it just as the caboose went by, and we had some forty cars
in the train at that."
At this a smile broke over De Armand's face, and he grasped my hand and
said, "Excuse m-m-m-e k-k-id; but y-y-you k-k-know how it is
y-y-yourself.
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