dy. I'm goin'
out and tramp around the grounds a bit before dinner."

That was a good hunch. It's a clear, crisp evenin' outside, with the
last red of the sun just showin' in the northwest and a thin new moon
hangin' over Long Island Sound off in the east, and in a couple of turns
I shook off the whole business. I'd taken one circle and was roundin'
the back of the garage, when I sees something dark slip into a tree
shadow up near the house.

"That you, Dominick?" I sings out.

There's no answer to that, and, knowin' that if there's one failin'
Dominick don't possess it's bein' tonguetied, I gets suspicious.
Besides, a couple of porch-climbin' jobs had been pulled off in the
neighborhood recent, and, even though I do carry a burglar policy, I
ain't crazy about havin' strangers messin' through the bureau drawers
while I'm tryin' to sleep. So I sneaks along the hedge for a ways, and
then does the sleuthy approach across the lawn on the right flank.
Another minute and I've made a quick spring and has my man pinned
against the tree with both his wrists fast and my knee in his chest.

"Woof!" says he, deep and guttural.

"Excuse the warm welcome," says I, "but that's only a sample of what we
pass out to stray visitors like you. Sizin' up the premises, were you,
and gettin' ready to collect a few souvenirs?"

"A thousand pardons," says he, "if I have seem to intrude!"

"Eh?" says I. That wa'n't exactly the comeback you'd expect from a
second-story worker, and he has a queer foreign twist to his words.

"It is possible," he goes on, "that I have achieved the grand mistake."

"Maybe," says I, loosenin' up on him a little. "What was it you thought
you was after?"

"The house of one McCah-be," says he, "a professor of fists, I am told."

"That's a new description of me," says I, "but I'm the party. All of
which don't prove, though, that you ain't a crook."

"Crook?" says he. "Ah, a felon! But no, Effendi. I come on an errand of
peace, as Allah is good."

How was that now, havin' Allah sprung on me in my own front yard? Why
travel?

"Say, come out here where I can get a better look," says I, draggin' him
out of the shadow. "There! Well, of all the----"

No wonder I lost my breath; for what I've picked up off the front lawn
looks like a stray villain from a comic opera. He's a short,
barrel-podded gent, mostly costumed in a long black cape affair and one
of these tasseled Turkish caps. About all the features I can