a sort of
angry laugh.

"Tell him, Lightnut," he rasped. "I've had enough of this!"

The big policeman's features expanded in a grin, while Tim doubled
forward an instant, his blue girth wabbling with internal appreciation
of the Foxy one's facetiousness; and the janitor snickered.

Jenkins looked shocked. As for me, dash it, I never so wished for my
monocle, don't you know!

O'Keefe's head angled a little to give me the benefit of a surreptitious
wink.

"Oh, certainly," he said, his voice affecting a fine sarcasm; "if the
gentleman says you're his _friend_--"

"He's no friend of mine," I proclaimed indignantly. "Never saw him
before in my life."

Instead of being confounded, the artful old villain fell back with a
great air of astonishment and dismay. By Jove, he managed to turn fairly
purple.

"Wha-a-t's that?" he gasped stranglingly and clutching at the collar of
his pajamas. "Say that again, Dicky."

I looked at him severely.

"Oh, I say, don't call me 'Dicky,' either," I remonstrated quietly.
"It's a name I only like to hear my intimate friends use."

He kind of caught the back of a chair and glared wildly at me from under
his bushy wintry eyebrows. The beefy rolls of his lower jaw actually
trembled.

"Don't you--haven't you always classed me as that, Dic--er--Lightnut?"
he sort of whispered.

By Jove, the effrontery of such acting fairly disgusted me. I looked him
over from head to foot with measured contempt. "I don't know you at
all," I said coldly, turning away.

"Ye gods!" he wheezed, clutching at his grizzled hair.

CHAPTER XII

I SEND A MAN TO JAIL

The two policemen shifted impatiently.

"That'll about do, Foxy," growled O'Keefe. "It's entertaining, but
enough of a thing--"

But the old duffer caught his sleeve.

"Wait!" he panted. "One second--wait--just one second!"

He looked at Jenkins and ducked his neck forward, swallowing hard.

"Jenkins," he said with a sickly smile. "You--you see how it is with
Lightnut--poor fellow! None of us ever thought he would go off that bad
though. But, as it is, I guess you're the one now who will have to set
me right with these people. You'll have to stand for me."

Jenkins looked alarmed. He addressed the officers eagerly:

"S'help me," he cried, his glance impaling the prisoner with scorn, "I
never see this party before in the ten years I been in New York!"

Did that settle the fellow? By Jove, not a bit; his jolly nerve seemed