Fatty had hardly settled himself before he began to wonder how he would get out in the morning.
"By gosh!" he said, "p'r'aps I'll jus' have to stay here, 'n' they'll carry me right over to the stock-yards. Wouldn't I be a great steer, eh?"
But I was too tired to speculate, and in a few minutes was asleep. What Fatty did for the next fifty miles I can't say, but in about two hours he cruelly awakened me and asked for a match.
"Why, you're not going to smoke here?" I said.
"You'll set the place afire, with all this loose hay about."
"Set yer gran'mother afire! Gimme a lucifer."
I told him I had none, and then he wanted me to get out and ask the brakey for one. I did not want to do it, but I felt sure that he would trouble me all night unless I did, so I consented to go. But, lo and behold! when I tried to lift the lid it would not lift.
"Ditched yer gran'mother! What's the matter?"
Fatty weighed two hundred and fifty pounds,--"punds," he called them,--and he put every one against that lid. It squeaked a little, but still would not lift.
But he was determined not to give in, and lay on his back to kick the lid. He reasoned that that ought to mean fifty pounds more, and if three hundred "punds' couldn't budge the thing, then something was going to happen. He kicked and kicked. The lid squeaked a good deal, but was as stubborn as ever. Then you should have heard Fatty scold. He scolded everybody, from the president of the road down to the humblest switchman, and then, as if he had not done enough, said:
"By gosh, Cig, we'll prosecute 'em! This is simply scandalous! Tramps can't ride this way, and they ought to know it. Yes, sir, we'll prosecute 'em."
Then he began to swear, and never in my life have I heard such maledictions hurled at poor erring railroad officials. Soon even cursing tired him, and he tumbled back on the hay exhausted. After he had rested a bit, a new phase of the situation presented itself to him, and he felt around in the box to see how much hay there was between us and the steers.
"There ain't much, Cig," he whined; "---- little; an here we are locked in! By the hoky-poky, I'd like to git hold o' that brakey's throat! I'd squeeze it, take my tip for that. An', by gosh, if them steers kill us, he'll croak for it, an' don' cher forget it!"