of all kinds, took Toffee at her word, and lifted her none too daintily from her chair.

"Stop that!" yelled Marc, and rushing to the struggling women, took a bare shoulder in each hand. No sooner did he have them parted, than, as if by magic, a huge, meaty hand fell on Marc's shoulder and nearly weighted him to the floor. "Oh, murder!" he murmured as he looked up into the terrifying face of Manny Groute, which, at the moment, bore an expression that did little toward inspiring open-hearted confidence and trust.

"You named it right, bud," Manny rumbled ominously. "I don't like guys pawin' my girl friend."

In the following moments, Ruby and Manny looked like rather grotesque members of a water ballet, as, in perfect unison, they held their victims at bay, and drew back their fists. To anyone else, in Toffee's very potent position, Ruby's doubled fist would have been an item of consuming interest, but to Toffee, it was a forgotten detail, as her attention fell on the acrobats that were the current floor show attraction. It was the first time she had ever seen a human pyramid being formed, and that so many well developed masculine bodies should appear all in one clump, seemed to her, the most wonderful spectacle in the whole world.

If Toffee was oblivious of her coming fate, however, Marc was not. Indeed, as he glimpsed Manny's mammoth hand in the impressive process of doubling itself, he found himself regretting his oversight in not reserving a room while at the hospital that morning. He had a strong hunch that he would shortly have need of it. It was then that the unexpected happened.

Swiftly, a claw-like hand jutted from beneath the next table and grabbed Manny's thick ankle. In another second, Marc felt the racketeer falling against him, and the two of them were headed for the floor like a couple of felled pines. Instantly, for Marc, everything went black.

In the meantime, Ruby, in her determination to do a really bang-up job on Toffee, was giving her blow all the careful aim, and driving power it would need. Squinting, she sighted Toffee's right eye, and let go. It was precisely in this moment that Marc's head struck the floor and Toffee vanished into thin air.

The man on the flying trapeze had nothing on Ruby. She sailed gracefully through the air and came quickly to a skidding stop on the top of a nearby table, at which sat two of the club's more befogged patrons.

"Perfect belly landing!" one of them cried delightedly. "Smooth as glass."

 Prev. P 20/38 next