symptoms of this dawning distrust. It made the problem simpler, to
have the boy alive to his peril.

Pausing, P. Sybarite met November's glare with eyes informed with an
expression amazingly remote and dispassionate, and in a level and
toneless voice addressed him.

"I've a message for you--a hurry call--won't keep--"

"Well?" snapped the gangster. "What's it about? Spit it out!"

"Why, Nella says--" P. Sybarite began deliberately; and paused to
cough politely behind his hand; and leaned confidentially over the
table.

At this juncture the boy pushed back his chair and rose.

"Pardon me, m' dear," he said thickly to the woman; "'m goin' home."

"Ah, sit down," November interrupted quickly, pitching his protean
accents to a key of cajolery--"sit down and have another. What's your
hurry?"

His eyes caught the woman's.

"That's right, dearie," she chimed in hurriedly, laying a soft
detaining hand on the boy's forearm. "Be a good fellow. Stake me to
just one more pint--"

"No," the boy insisted, shaking free--"I'm going home. Le' me alone."

"Nella," P. Sybarite interpolated in an imperative tone, momentarily
distracting November's attention--"Nella says to tell you she wants
you--now--immediately. Do you get that?"

"Damn Nella!" snapped the gang leader. "Tell her to go to the devil.
And you"--he menaced P. Sybarite with a formidable look--"you slide
outa here--in a hurry! See?"

With this, rising in his place, he put forth a hand to detain the boy,
who was sullenly pushing past the woman.

"Wait!" he insisted. "You can't go before you pay up--"

Whipping from his pocket a note (of what denomination he never
knew--but it was large) P. Sybarite slapped it down upon the table.

"That'll pay whatever he owes," he announced, and to the boy: "Clear
out--quick--do you hear!--while you've got a chance--"

"What t'ell business is it of yours?" November demanded, turning upon
him furiously.

With an enigmatic smile, P. Sybarite dexterously tipped up his side of
the table and, overturning it, caught the gangster unprepared for any
such manoeuvre and pinned him squirming in the angle of wall and
floor.

Immediately the woman came to her feet shrieking; while the little man
seized the befuddled boy and swung him toward the door actually before
he realised what was happening.

Simultaneously, November's henchmen at the adjoining table leapt into
the brawl with an alacrity that sent their chairs clattering ba