and begs me not to go out. He's
for ringin' up the police.

"Ring up nobody!" says I. "S'pose I want this thing gettin' into the
papers? If a Lady Bughouse has strayed in here, we got to shoo her out
as quiet as possible. She can't shoot if we rush her. Come on!"

I will say for Swifty Joe that, while he ain't got any too much sense,
there's no ochre streak in him. When I pulls open the gym. door and
gives the word, we went through neck and neck.

"Look out!" he yells, and I sees him makin' a grab at the arm of a
broad beamed old party, all done up nicely in grey silk and white lace.

And say, it's lucky I got a good mem'ry for profiles; for if I hadn't
seen right away it was Purdy Bligh's Aunt Isabella, and that the gun
was nothin' but her silver hearin' tube, we might have been tryin' to
explain it to her yet. As it is, I'm just near enough to make a swipe
for Swifty's right hand with my left, and I jerks his paw back just as
she turns around from lookin' out of the window and gets her lamps on
us. Say, we must have looked like a pair of batty ones, standin' there
holdin' hands and starin' at her! But it seems that folks as deaf as
she is ain't easy surprised. All she does is feel around her for her
gold eye glasses with one hand, and fit the silver hearin' machine to
her off ear with the other. It's one of these pepper box affairs, and
I didn't much wonder that Swifty took it for a gun.

"Are you Professor McCabe?" says she.

"Sure!" I hollers; and Swifty, not lookin' for such strenuous
conversation, goes up in the air about two feet.

"I beg pardon," says the old girl; "but will you kindly speak into the
audiphone."

So I steps up closer, forgettin' that I still has the clutch on Swifty,
and drags him along.

"Ahr, chee!" says Swifty. "This ain't no brother act, is it?"

With that I lets him go, and me and Aunt Isabella gets down to
business. I was lookin' for some tale about Purdy--tell you about him
some day--but it looks like this was a new deal; for she opens up by
askin' if I knew a party by the name of Dennis Whaley.

"Do I?" says I. "I've known Dennis ever since I can remember knowin'
anybody. He's runnin' my place out to Primrose Park now."

"I thought so," says Aunt Isabella. "Then perhaps you know a niece of
his, Margaret Whaley?"

I didn't; but I'd heard of her. She's Terence Whaley's girl, that come
over from Skibbereen four or five years back, after near starvin' to
dea