The tramp gave chase. Frankly, he was in good shape for a presumably malnourished man. Legs and arms pumping back and forth, pistons pistoning or whatever they do, he was rapidly covering the ground between us. Like the terminator, if Arnie was wearing ripped blue jeans, a checked lumberjack shirt and a dirty bowler hat.
"Just give him back the money!" I yelled to Max. Of course, I didn't yell it so coherently. There were pauses for me to draw ragged breaths, and such, but I was to lazy to write them in.
"No!" Yelled Max, "I earned that 14p!"
Behind us, the tramp was still gaining on us. I could see the red in his eyes, the flickering of froth around his mouth. I wondered if he had rabies. Probably, but I didn't want to make assumptions just because he'd fallen on hard times.
Catching a second wind, Max and I sprinted onto a busy highstreet. Weaving through crowds, who quickly gave our pursuer a wide birth, we headed past a street-sculpture and a herd of passing Nuns. Behind us, the tramp, now only 10 feet away, pulled his hat from his head and send it flying. Spinning fast, it shot past Max's head, edges sharpened like Oddjob's, the hat took Max's ear.
Nearing me now, the tramp stretched out his arms. I'd had enough, and we only had 3 ears between us now, so my planning probably wasn't sound. Stopping, I dived sideways, tackling Max. The tramp, having built up momentum during the chase, raced past us, unstoppable, hitting a waist-high bin. Colliding, flying, somersaulting, he flew up and away from us, high into the sky, silhouetted on the sun, before coming back down, onto the road, into the side of a double-decker bus. Grabbing both Max and his severed ear, I made good our escape before the tramp could recover.