than bunglers, with no professional
pride, no decent instincts, no human consideration. _They_ never
stop to think it's tough enough for a householder to come home to a
cracked crib without finding a total stranger to boot--a man he's
never even _seen_ before, like as not--ah--weltering on the
premises--"

"Oh, do be serious!"

"Must I? If you wish."

The man composed his features to a mask of whimsical attention.

"What--what did you do with him?" the girl stammered after a pause
during which consciousness of her disadvantage became only more acute.

"Our active little friend, the yegg? Why, I didn't do anything with
him."

"You didn't leave him there'?"

"Oh, no; he went away, considerately enough--up-stairs and out
through the scuttle--the way he broke in, you know. Surprisingly spry
on his feet for a man of his weight and age--had all I could do to
keep up. He did stop once, true, as if he'd forgotten something, but
the sword ran into him--I happened thoughtlessly to be carrying
it--only a quarter of an inch or so--and he changed his mind, and by
the time I got my head through the scuttle he was gone--vanished
utterly from human ken!"

"He had broken the scuttle open, you say?"

"Pried it up with a jimmy."

"And you left it so? He'll go back."

"No, he won't. I found hammer and nails and made all fast before I
left."

"But," she demanded, wide-eyed with wonder, "why did you take that
trouble?"

"My silly conceit, I presume. I couldn't bear the thought of having
that roughneck return and muss up one of my neatest jobs."

"I don't understand you at all," she murmured, utterly confounded.

"Nor I you, if it matters. Still, I'm sure you won't keep me much
longer in suspense, considering how open-faced I've been. But here's
that animal of a waiter again."

She was willingly silent, though she exerted herself to seem at ease
with indifferent success. The voice of her companion was like a
distant, hollow echo in her hearing; her wits were all awhirl, her
nerves as taut and vibrant as banjo-strings; before her vision the
face of Blue Serge swam, a flesh-tinted moon now and again traversed
by a flash of white when he smiled.

"Come!" the man rallied her sharply, if in an undertone, "this will
never do. You're as white as a sheet, trembling and staring as if I
were a leper--or a relation by marriage or--something repulsive!"

She sat forward mechanically and mustered an uncertain smile.
"Forgive me.