"I says to meself," he explained, "'Hunch, old sport, ye're in for it.
He'll like as not drop yuh out of the window with an electric wire,
feed yuh to an electric wolf or make yuh play hell-for-a-minute chess
or some other o' them woozy stunts 'at pop up in his bean like
mushrooms, but yuh gotta square yerself with that paper. Yuh gotta get
up yer nerve an' hike up there to the brownstone with it.' I ask yuh,"
he finished dramatically, and evidently laboring under the momentary
conviction that Carl, too, was optically afflicted, "I ask yuh, Carl,
to cast yer good lamp over that there paper."
Carl opened the paper and stared.
"Hunch," he exclaimed with an involuntary glance at the mended
candlestick, "where in the devil did you get this?"
"I ask yuh to remember," went on Hunch in some excitement, "that I was
drunk an' the old she-wol--Gr-r-r-r-r!" Hunch cleared his heavy throat
in a panic, with a rasp like the stripping of gears, and corrected
himself. "The Old One," he spoke somewhat as if this singular title
was a degree, "the Old One put one over on me."
"My aunt, I imagine," said Carl, "has given me a fairly accurate
version of His Nibs' escape. I'll admit a pardonable anxiety to
interview you for a while. As a matter of fact there was a night--when
I was not in the Lithia League--that I drove down to look you up.
Pages:
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355