Fenn could not stop himself. He charged the man squarely,
clutched him to save himself, and they fell in a heap on the pavement.
XVI
WHAT HAPPENED TO FENN
Fenn was up first. Many years' experience of being tackled at full
speed on the football field had taught him how to fall. The stranger,
whose football days, if he had ever had any, were long past, had gone
down with a crash, and remained on the pavement, motionless. Fenn was
conscious of an ignoble impulse to fly without stopping to chat about
the matter. Then he was seized with a gruesome fear that he had
injured the man seriously, which vanished when the stranger sat up.
His first words were hardly of the sort that one would listen to from
choice. His first printable expression, which did not escape him until
he had been speaking some time, was in the nature of an official
bulletin.
"You've broken my neck," said he.
Fenn renewed his apologies and explanations.
"Your watch!" cried the man in a high, cracked voice. "Don't stand
there talking about your watch, but help me up. What do I care about
your watch? Why don't you look where you are going to? Now then, now
then, don't hoist me as if I were a hod of bricks. That's right. Now
help me indoors, and go away."
Fenn supported him while he walked lamely into the house. He was
relieved to find that there was nothing more the matter with him than
a shaking and a few bruises.
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