The
door was flung wide open.
"Have you been drinking, sir? How dare you disturb the hotel in
this fashion?" demanded the proprietor.
"The crabs! Take them off!" yelled Crabtree, continuing to dance
around.
"Crabs? What made you bring crabs up here?"
"I - I -- oh, my toes! Take them off!" shrieked Josiah Crabtree,
and kicked out right and left. One of the crabs was flung off, to
land in the hotel proprietor's face and to catch the man by the
nose.
"My nose! He will bite it off!" cried the hotel man. "Kill the
thing, Gillett -- smash it with a-a-anything!"
And Gillett, the clerk, tried to do so, while the hotel man and
Crabtree continued to dance around in the wildest kind of fury.
Safe in their own room, the boys laughed until they cried. All
had gone to bed, and Tom lost no time in getting under the covers.
"Somebody has played a trick," began Crabtree when an extra nip on
his knee cut hint short. "Oh, my, I shall die!" he moaned. "I
know I shall die!"
By this time the proprietor of the hotel had freed himself from
the crab that had nipped him on the nose. "You won't die, but
you'll get out of this hotel," he snarled. "Throw the crabs out
of the window," he continued to his employees, and after a good
deal of trouble one crab after another was hurled forth, the
window being kept open in the meantime and the icy draught causing
Crabtree to shiver as with the ague.
Pages:
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187