o
do?'

"'We're goin' to drown ye, if ye ask me that ag'in!' I says, bein'
beyont mesilf entirely. And thin all to wanct it come to me I might be
tryin' the trolley after all, and tellin' the people he was a crazy
man I was takin' home, if he begun talkin'. Sure, wan look at him
would convince thim he'd been a lunytic afore he was took so bad. And
this way I could be takin' him to me own place on the East Side instid
of to the warehouse near O'Hara. It was a fool plan, but most plans is
fool wans, and what ilse could I be doin' with him?

"'I'd been considerin' the trolley mesilf,' I says, 'and I'm thinkin'
we'll take it and go over on the 130th Street ferry, but if ye make
wan peep to annywan, it's me will kill ye on the spot. Do ye mind
that!' I says to him, ferocious.

"'Oh,' says he, 'ye don't need to talk to me like that,' he says. 'I
wasn't goin' to say annything or make ye anny trouble.'

"'Oh, ye wasn't?' I says to him. 'Ye're a liar,' I says to mesilf, 'ye
was, and they's something queerer about ye than ye look, which is
sayin' a good deal.' But I give the suspinders a jerk, and we wint on
down the shore to a easier path up thim Palisades, it bein' no long
walk from the top to the trolley. What worried me worst was him bein'
so cheerful. It might 'a' been from him not havin' sinse enough to be
anny other way, only whin it was plain robbin' he'd thought I was
after he'd been scared healthy and satisfyin' entirely. It was the
kidnappin' soothed him, bad scran to him, and it was fair uneasy I was
in the heart of me, almost suspectin' they were brains in him
somewheres.

"Well, maybe they was and maybe they wasn't, I dunno, and maybe
'twas something worse than that. 'And the mosquities won't bite him,'
I says to mesilf. 'If mosquities was humans, 'twould be easy of
understandin', but a mosquity ain't got annything in his head
exciptin' teeth, and thim Jersey wans will bite whativer it is if it
don't bite thim first. Sure, they's times whin dumb beasts can be
teachin' anny of us, and thim mosquities is after havin' their own
reasons. And do ye mind,' I wint on to mesilf, 'how he wint up that
ladder like he was floatin' on air?' Faith, I think I was half
believin' him a ghost, excipt for his neck feelin' a bit solid
whin I pulled on the suspinders.

"Whin we come to the top, and the wind was back in him ag'in, I says:
'And what might your name be, sor?'

"'Courtney Delevan Schwartz,' says he, lively as a gr