gleeful, boisterous tones was the announcement that the drunken little band of miscreants had found still a new outlet for their antisocial tendencies.

A blowsy blonde named Dora, spotting a cop lounging against his motorcycle along the highway, had observed the prescribed amenities between the law and the underworld by leaning out the window and making a series of rude and meaningful gestures. Admiring Dora's finesse in this affair, her escort, a blue-jawed second-story artist named Moose, leaned out beside her and dispatched a depleted whiskey bottle at the cop's head, scoring a solid hit along side the ear. Their friends and companions, as a result, had fairly collapsed in their seats with helpless laughter.

In this sordid incident were the beginnings of a well-routined game. The criminals, seeing no end of fun in this little sport, organized themselves into a team so that it might be pursued with the greatest efficiency and dispatch. Splitting themselves into cop-watchers, cop-insulters and cop-smackers, they became a yelling, yowling menace to every patrolman and peace-enforcer along the highway. As Marc continued to slumber, a chorus of sirens began to wail and shriek in the wake of the lumbering bus. Of those involved in this not-so-innocent diversion, only the bus driver was distressed.

"Now, cut it out, you!" he yelled back at his cop-assaulting passengers. "Lay off before you get me into serious trouble!"

"Step on the gas, you hacky!" Moose roared. "Give it the gun!" And having delivered this command, he snatched up another bottle and sent it sizzling through the window toward the head of an unsuspecting sheriff's deputy.

"Got him!" Floss shrieked with childish glee and collapsed to the aisle in a fit of giggles.

The sirens following the bus had reached a many-throated scream before Marc finally awoke. Opening his eyes with a start, he gazed about, firmly convinced that the world had gone mad. A glance toward the front of the bus and another out the rear, however, swiftly told him the frightful truth of the matter.

"Stop that!" he yelled. "Stop it this instant!"

"Look, mister!" the bus driver hollered. "Either you quiet down those maniacs or I'm going to drive this bus right off a cliff somewhere!"

Marc looked ahead down the highway. Mercifully, deliverance, of a sort, was at hand.

 Prev. P 32/64 next