Bob's knife was sharp. He always kept it in good condition. It did many
of the chores about the house, and was cunning in its skill. It cut
beautiful long punctures in the four tires, until there was no chance at
all of that car's going on its way for some time to come. Then he
squirmed his way out on the opposite side from the house, slid along by
the fence to the side door, around to the back like a flash and without
an instant's hesitation hauled up his elaborate system of drainage. He
stuck the longest conductor pipe through the open window of the old
laundry, clutched at the sill and swung inside, drawing the pipe in
after him.

The altercation in the kitchen had reached white heat. Hutton's suavity
was fast disappearing behind a loud angry tone. He had about sized up
Ma and decided to use force.

It was a tense moment when Bob, his hasty arrangements made, silently
swung open the laundry door in full range of the uninvited guests and
waited for the psychological moment. Mrs. Carson had dropped her knife
and seized the smoking hot frying-pan of bacon as a weapon. She was cool
and collected, but one could see in her eyes the little devil of battle
that sometimes sat in Bob's eyes as she swung the frying-pan back for a
blow. Suddenly out flashed a cold steel eye, menacing, unanswerable,
looking straight into her own.

At that instant, unannounced and unobserved, through the laundry door
lumbered a long ugly tin conductor pipe, and the deluge began. Straight
into the eyes of the would-be husband it gushed, battering swashingly
down on the cocked revolver, sending it harmlessly to the floor, where
it added to the confusion by going off with a loud report, and sending
the chauffeur to the shelter of the parlor. Bob never knew how near he
came to killing some one by his hasty service, and Ma never had the
heart to suggest it. Instead she acted promptly and secured the weapon
before the enemy had time to recover from his shock.

Bob, in the laundry, standing on a chair mounted on a board across the
bathtub, sturdily held his wobbling conductor pipe and aimed it straight
to the mark. Of course he knew that even a well-filled phalanx of
hogsheads could not hold the enemy forever, but he was counting on the
fire company to arrive in time to save the day.

Gasping, clawing the air, ducking, diving here and there to escape the
stream, Herbert Hutton presented a spectacle most amusing and satisfying
to Bob's boy mind.