"_Huppup!_" said Mr. Puddlebox. "Blink! Hup!" and with this his pudding-bowl hat detached itself from his head and dropped lightly into the wagoner's lap. That gentleman immediately produced another oath, compared with which his earlier effort was as a sweet smelling rose at dewy morn, drew up his unfortunate team even more violently than he had urged them forward, with very loud bellows bounded to the road and, whip in hand, completed a very rapid circuit of his wagon, bawling the while a catalogue of astoundingly blood-curdling intentions which he proposed to wreak upon somebody before, as he phrased it, he had his blinking hair cut. His passengers, considerably alarmed at these proceedings, withdrew to the exact centre of the sacks and there reflected, each in the other's face, his own dismay. "Now you've done it, you silly ass," said Mr. Wriford. "It's not over yet," said Mr. Puddlebox. "I'm afraid this is going to be very rough." CHAPTER II PASSIONATE ATTACHMENT TO LIVER OF A WAGONER "You're up there, ain't yer?" demanded the wagoner, arrived at the other side of the wagon and bawling from the road. "You're up there, aren't yer? I've got you, my beauty! I'll cut your liver out for yer before I have my blinkin' hair cut! I've got you, my beauty! You're up there, aren't yer?" Mr. Puddlebox poked his head very timidly over the side, looked down upon their questioner, and remarked in a small thin voice: "Yes--hup!" He then drew back very hastily, for at sight of him the wagoner with a very loud bellow rushed forward and smote upward with his whip in a manner fully calculated, to the minds of his passengers, to cut up a sack or lay open a liver with equal precision. "Come down off out of it!" bellowed this passionate gentleman, flogging upward with appalling whistle and thud of his lash. "Come down off out of it. I'll cut your liver out, my beauty! I'll cut your coat off your back, before I have my blinkin' hair cut." Perceiving that the angry lash fell safely short of its aim, Mr. Puddlebox again protruded his head. "Now are you coming down," demanded the flaming wagoner, "or am I coming up for you?" "I should like to explain--" began Mr. Puddlebox. "I'll explain you!" roared the wagoner. "I'll explain you, my beauty! Are you coming down off out of it?" "What are you going to do if I do come?" inquired Mr. Puddlebox. The carter, in a voice whose violence seemed likely to throttle him, announced as his intention that he proposed to cut out Mr. Puddlebox's liver with his whip and then, having extracted it, to dance upon it. "Well, I won't come," said Mr. Puddlebox. "In that case, I think I'll stay here," he said, and said it with a nervous little giggle that shot out of the wagoner an inarticulate bellow of fury and a half-dozen of terrific blows towards Mr. Puddlebox's anxious face. "Come down off out of it!" bellowed the carter. "I'll cut your liver out before I have my blinkin' hair cut, my beauty."