y. "It ain't goin' to do you no
good--"

Another interrupted with an accent of deep disgust, in patent
recognition of his borrowed plumage: "Damned if it ain't a patrolman!"

"Why the hell didn't you say so?" demanded the first as P. Sybarite
fell back, free.

"Didn't--have--time. Here--gimme a leg over this fence, will you?"

"What the devil--!"

"They've got a door through to the next house--getting out that way.
That's what I'm after--to stop 'em. Shut up!" P. Sybarite insisted
savagely--"and give me a leg."

"Oh, well!" said one of the plain-clothes men in a slightly mollified
voice--"if that's the way of it--all right."

"Come along, then," brusquely insisted the impostor, leading the way
to the eastern wall of boards enclosing the back yard.

Curiously complaisant for one of his breed, the detective bent his
back and made a stirrup of his clasped hands, but no sooner had P.
Sybarite fitted foot to that same than the man started and,
straightening up abruptly, threw him flat on his back.

"Patrolman, hell! Whatcha doin' in them pants and shoes if you're a
patrol--"

"Hel-_lo_!" exclaimed the other indignantly. "Impersonatin' an
officer--eh?"

With this he dived at P. Sybarite; who, having bounced up from a
supine to a sitting position, promptly and peevishly swore, rolled to
one side (barely eluding clutches that meant to him all those
frightful and humiliating consequences that arrest means to the
average man) and scrambled to his feet.

Immediately the others closed in upon him, supremely confident of
overcoming by concerted action that smallish, pale, and terrified
body. Whereupon P. Sybarite' stepped quickly to one side and, avoiding
the rush of one, directly engaged the other. Ducking beneath a
windmill play of arms, he shot an accurate fist at this aggressor's
jaw; there was a click of teeth, the man's head snapped back, and
folding up like a tripod, he subsided at length.

Then swinging on a heel, P. Sybarite met a second onset made more
dangerous by the cooler calculations of a more sophisticated
antagonist. Nevertheless, deftly blocking a rain of blows, he closed
in as if eager to escape punishment, and planted a lifted knee in the
large of the detective's stomach so neatly that he, too, collapsed
like a punctured presidential boom and lay him down at rest.

Success so egregious momentarily stupefied even P. Sybarite. Gazing
down upon those two still shapes, so mighty and formidable when