"Get out, will you?" snapped the manager, undertaking to slam the door.

But Wharton was in a declamatory mood and went on, swingingly: "The sky is faintly flushed with pink; Apollo in his chariot draws nigh. The morning-glory closes with the sun, Bergman, and if a fairy princess is late she will be shut out and forced to sleep on the petals of a rose. My dear n.o.bel, don't spoil her beauty sleep."

"I'm tired of your insolence. I'll--"

Bergman never finished his sentence, for in his rage he committed a grave blunder--he struck wildly at the flushed face so close to his, and the next instant was jerked bodily out of his seat.

Lorelei uttered a cry of fright, for the whole side of the cab seemed to go with her employer.

There was a brief scuffle, a whirl of flying arms, then Bergman's voice rose in a strangely m.u.f.fled howl, followed by nasal curses.

With a bellow of anguish he suddenly ceased his struggles, and Lorelei saw that Bob was holding him by the nose. It happened to be a large, unhandsome, and fleshy member, and, securely grasping it, Bergman's conqueror held him at a painful and humiliating disadvantage.

Bob was panting, but he managed to say, "Come! We will run for the lady--once around the block."

A m.u.f.fled shriek of pain was the answer, but the street was empty save for some grinning chauffeurs, who offered no a.s.sistance.

"Be a good fellow. I insist, my dear n.o.bel. Advance! Double quick!

Charge!"

The two men moved away haltingly, then at a zigzag trot, and finally at a slow run. They disappeared around the corner, Bob Wharton leading, Bergman bent double and screaming poisonous oaths.

"Drive on, quickly," Lorelei implored, but the chauffeur cranked his motor reluctantly, craning his neck in an evident desire to see more of this interesting affray. His companions were laughing loudly and slapping their thighs. Despite Lorelei's hysterically repeated orders, he experienced difficulty in starting the machine; finally he lifted the hood and fumbled inside. A moment pa.s.sed, then another; he cranked once more, but as the motor was seized with a fit of shuddering the two white-fronted figures turned the upper corner and approached. Their relative positions were unchanged. The block was a short one, yet they seemed winded.

Bergman was sobbing now like a woman, and he was followed by three curious newsboys.

Bob paused at the starting-point and wheezed: "Bravo! You done n.o.ble, n.o.bel. We've learned some new steps, too, eh?" All power of resistance had left the victim, who seemed upon the verge of collapse. "I say we've learned some new steps; haven't we, Bergy?"

He tweaked the distorted member in his grasp, and Bergman's head wagged loosely.

A late diner cruised uncertainly down the street, and, sensing the unusual, paused, rocking in his tracks.

"Whash trouble? Shome fightin' goin' on?" he inquired, brightly.

"Oh, please--please--" Lorelei cried, tremulously. "Don't--"

"Canter for the kind lady," Wharton insisted. "Come on." He began to lift and lower his shoulders in imitation of a rider. Bergman capered awkwardly. "Once more."

"Fine!" shouted the drunken spectator, clapping his hands loosely.

"Tha's bully. Now make 'im shingle-foot."

"Single-foot? Certainly. He's park gaited."

"Mr. Wharton! BOB--" Lorelei's agonized entreaty brought her admirer to the cab door, but he fetched his prisoner in tow. "Let him go or--we'll all be arrested."

"Want see 'im shingle-foot," eagerly importuned the stranger.

"I'll take off his bridle if you insist. But it's a grand nose.

I--love it. Never was there such a nose."

Bergman, with a desperate wrench, regained his freedom and staggered away with his face in his hands.

"It--actually stretched," said Bob, as he regretfully watched his victim. "I dare say I'll never find another nose like it."

The appreciative bystander lurched forward and flung an arm over his shoulder, then, peering in at the girl, exclaimed: "Good, wasn't it? I had a horse once, an' I know. You're a'right, m'

frien'. Let's go get another one."

Lorelei's cab got under way at last, but barely in time, for a crowd was a.s.sembling. She sank back weakly, and her last glimpse showed Wharton arm-in-arm with the tipsy wayfarer.

Not until she was safely inside her little apartment, with the chain on the door, did she surrender; then she burst into a trembling, choking fit of laughter. But her estimate of Wharton had risen, and for the first time he seemed not entirely bad.

CHAPTER XIII

Jimmy Knight felt his sister's desertion quite as keenly as did his mother and father, for his schemes, though inchoate, were ambitious, and his heart was set upon them. Lorelei's obstinacy was exasperating--a woman's unaccountable freakishness.

He confided his disappointment to Max Melcher. "It's pretty tough," complained Jimmy. "I had Merkle going, but she crabbed it.

Then just as that b.o.o.b Wharton was getting daffier over her every day she gets her back up and the whole thing is cold."

"You mean it's cold so far as you're concerned," Melcher judicially amended.

"Sure. She's sore on me, and the whole family."

"Then this is just the time to marry her off. New York is a mighty lonesome place for a girl like her. Suppose I take a hand."

"All right."

"Will you declare me in?"

"Certainly."

Melcher eyed his a.s.sociate coldly. "There's no 'certainly' about it. You'd throw your own mother if you got a chance. But you can't throw me, understand? You try a cross and--the cold-meat wagon for yours. I'll have you slabbed at the morgue."

Jimmy's reply left no doubt of the genuineness of his fears, if not of his intentions. Strange stories were told in the Tenderloin--tales of treachery punished and ingrat.i.tude revenged.

Jimmy knew several young men who appeared out of the East Side at Melcher's signal. They were inconspicuous fellows, who bore fanciful dime-novel names--Dago Red, Izzy the Toad, Jew Mike, the Worm, and the rest--and no rustler's stronghold of the old-time Western cattle country ever boasted more formidable outlaws than they. New York is law-ridden, therefore corruption reigns; vice is capitalized, and in consequence there are men who live not only by roguery, but by violence. They hide in the crannies of the underworld; politics is their protection. At election times they do service for men high in authority; betweenwhiles they thrive on the bickerings and feuds among the despoilers. Jim knew these gunmen well; he had no wish to know them worse.

"I can't promise anything definite when she's sore on me," he declared.

"Oh yes, you can. She'll marry to please your mother and father, and she'll fix them up the first thing. Get them to agree to split their share, and I'll take a hand. If it doesn't go through there's no harm done."

"I don't see how you're going to frame a marriage--and yet she won't stand for anything else."

"You'll have to help, of course, and so will your mother. I've a hunch that we can handle Wharton all right--through booze. A man can be made to marry anybody if he's drunk enough."

"He's about ready to ask her--SHE'S the one to fix. She hates men, though, and that Merkle story made her crazy."

"Sore, eh?"

"She talked the Dutch route--thinks her good name is gone, and regards every man as a hyena."