down-stage Jimmy. Centre, Spike and the bulldog, their noses, a couple of inches apart, inspected each other with mutual disfavour. On the extreme O.P. side the bull-terrier, who had fallen foul of a wickerwork table, was crouching with extended tongue and rolling eyes, waiting for the next move.

The householder looked at Jimmy. Jimmy looked at the householder. Spike and the bulldog looked at each other. The bull-terrier distributed his gaze impartially around the company.

“A typical scene of quiet American home-life,” murmured Jimmy.

The man with the pistol glowered.

“Hands up, you devils!” he roared, pointing a mammoth revolver.

The two marauders humoured his whim.

“Let me explain,” said Jimmy pacifically, shuffling warily 43 round in order to face the bull-terrier, who was now strolling in his direction with an ill-assumed carelessness.

43

“Keep still, you blackguard!”

Jimmy kept still. The bull-terrier, with the same abstracted air, was beginning a casual inspection of his right trouser-leg.

Relations between Spike and the bulldog, meanwhile, had become more strained. The sudden flinging up of the former’s arms had had the worst effect on the animal’s nerves. Spike, the croucher on all-fours, he might have tolerated; but Spike, the semaphore, inspired him with thoughts of battle. He was growling in a moody, reflective manner. His eye was full of purpose.

It was probably this that caused Spike to look at the householder. Till then he had been too busy to gaze elsewhere, but now the bulldog’s eye had become so unpleasant that he cast a pathetic glance up at the man by the door.

“Gee!” he cried, as he did so. “It’s de boss! Say, boss, call off de dawg. It’s sure goin’ to nip de old head of me.”

The other lowered his revolver in surprise.

“So it’s you, is it, you limb of Satan?” he remarked. “I thought I had seen that damned red head of yours before. What are you doing in my house?”

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