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"Stop!" he bellowed majestically, and balanced upon his bow legs. 

On one side stretched a hastily constructed barrier of old boards and flimsy crates through which the blue sky line gleamed in bright bars; on the other a heavy waggon rested at an evidently intentional slant. 

"Blow, blow!" gasped Antony, and, "Get out of the way, you fool!" he cried with ineffective hoarseness, grinding his teeth as it became apparent that the creature meant to brazen it through. 

"Look out! We can't stop! Oh, please go away!" 55 

55

The shrill scream of the girl at his side accomplished more than the horn: the terror in her eyes spoke loudly for her, and with a face wherein rage and incredulity struggled, this vidous obstructor of highways stepped unwillingly aside and left them a scant five feet of passageway. But for Antony, in his present state of nerves, five feet was all too scant. Had he then escaped all the chances 56 and changes of this mad morning, had he won through by a miracle of success, only to be balked at the last by an incalculable old village marplot? Should a paunchy waddler of this sort wreck at once his pride and his car? Thus he frothed and boiled in his heart, and perhaps that overheated organ clouded his eyes and vibrated in his wrists, for the heavy front wheels of the great vehicle crashed into the flimsy right-hand barrier, mowed down the crates and planking as if they had been of straw, scattered them, crackling and clattering, far and wide; and worse than this, the hind wheels, with an utterly unintentional flirt which had nevertheless all the effect of a malicious and brilliantly executed manoeuvre, jolted the barrier-waggon so violently that the horse attached to it sprang quickly forward, thus unfortunately upsetting the pursy and authoritative native who had retreated to that side for safety. Down he rolled in the dust, yelling frantically, while the frightened horse with a sharp turn fled back through the town, scattering still further the wreckage of the ill-fated barricade. Nette, turning involuntarily, saw all this and saw, too, that even as he bit the dust the outraged wearer of the metal badge still clutched, and as it seemed to her 57 brandished, with a sinister motion the square of yellow paper. 

56

57

She stole a glance at Antony, but his set jaw and lowering brow did not invite confidences, 

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