bbles."

"Pebbles is right! I'm going to dike you out in one as big as a pebble.
And poils! Sa-y, they're what cost the spondulicks. A guy showed me a
string of little ones no bigger than pimples. Know what? That little
string could knock the three spots out of a thousand-dollar bond--I mean
bill!"

It was then that something flashed out of Marylin's face. A shade might
have been lowered; a candle blown out.

"Getaway," she said, with a quick little dig of fingers into his
forearm, "you're up to something!"

"Snuff, I said."

"What did you mean by that word, 'bond'?"

"Who built a high fence around the word 'bond'?"

"Bonds! All that stuff in the newspapers about those messengers
disappearing out of Wall Street with--bonds! Getaway, are you mixed up
in that? Getaway!"

"Well, well! I like that! I had you doped out for fair and warmer
to-day. The weather prophet didn't predict no brainstorm."

"That's not answering."

"Well, whadda you know! Miss Sherlock Holmes finds a corkscrew in the
wine cellar and is sore because it's crooked!"

"Getaway--answer."

"Whadda you want me to answer, Fairylin? That I'm the master mind behind
the--"

"It worries me so! You up in Monkey's room so much lately. You think I
don't know it? I do! All the comings and goings up there. Muggs Towers
sneaking up to Monkey's room in that messenger boy's suit he keeps
wearing all the time now. He's no more messenger boy than I am. Getaway,
tell me, you and Muggs up in Monkey's room so often? Footsteps up there!
Yours!"

"Gawalmighty! Now it's my footsteps!"

"I know them! Up in Monkey's room, right over mine. I know how you sneak
up there evenings after you leave me. It don't look nice your going into
the same house where I live, Getaway, even if it isn't to see me. It
don't look right from the outside!"

"Nobody can ever say I wanted to harm a hair of your little head. I even
look the other way when I pass your door. That's the kind of a modest
violet I am."

"It's not that, but the looks. That's the reason, I'll bet, if the
truth's known, why Monkey squirmed himself into that room over mine--to
hide your comings and goings as if they was to see me."

"Nothing of the kind!"

"Everything--up there--worries me so! Monkey's room right over mine.
My ceiling so full of soft footsteps that frighten me. I
know your footsteps, Getaway, just as well as anything. The
ball-of-your-foot--squeak! The-ball-of-your-foot--squeak!"

"Well