Tim whispered an impatient demur. "That's all right; but I'm for coaxing him out here first. I don't want to tap him on the gentleman's rugs; if I do, I can tell you, it'll ruin 'em, that's all."

He swept his hand across his tongue and gripped his stick tighter.

Jenkins, at one side, bobbed his head up and down and smiled his admiration of this sentiment. He leaned nearer to me.

"Just beckon him out, sir," his whisper advised. "Just tell him you want to show him something in the hall--cat, or anything will do. Just so you get him past the furniture and rugs, sir."

I advanced a step into the room. I expected the old knave to be a bit dashed, don't you know. Not he; it never disquieted him a bit. Just gave me a careless leer and went back to the ruby. Somehow I began to feel riled. I'm not often taken that way, but this old scamp's persistent audacity and impudence went beyond anything I had ever heard of.

"What in thunder's the matter with you, son?" he murmured, squinting hideously at the jewel. "You prowl around like you had a pain." Then he went right on:

"Say, did you ever see anything so corking fine?" He looked up, holding the ruby in the light. "And to think how little I dreamed of scooping anything like that when I came in here to-night!"

By Jove, this was a little too much, even for an easy-going chap like myself! The jolly worm will turn, you know.

Dash me, before I knew what I was doing even, I had moved to his side and jerked the ruby from his hand. My face felt like a hot-water bottle as I did it.

"You haven't got it yet," I said, "and I'll take devilish good care you don't get it."

He fell back as though from a blow.

"Why--why, old chap! Why, Lightnut!" he gasped. "What's the matter--what makes you look at me like that?"

"Your liberties have gone just a bit too far, don't you know," I said, looking steadily in his fishy old eye. "I've had enough of you, by Jove, that's all!"

He stared at me, and I could hear him breathing like a blacksmith's bellows. I would never have thought he had such lungs.

Slowly his hand came out, and dash me if it wasn't shaking like he had the delirium what's-its-name. But for his tan, his face would have been as white as his hypocritical old whiskers.

"Is this some infernal joke?" His face summoned a sickly smile that almost instantly faded. His hand fell back to his side. "Why, old fellow, you don't think that way about me, do you? As for the ruby, I--I don't want it now--I just want you to accept my apology for anything I've done, and--and let me get away."

There was a short laugh from the doorway.

"Likely enough," said Officer O'Keefe, his big figure swinging forward with long strides. "Keep him covered, Tim!"

He planted himself between us with a grin.

"You're 'it' again, Foxy! Jig's up. Will you go quietly?"

It did me good to see how completely the old scoundrel was taken back.

His wide distended bleary eyes shifted from O'Keefe to me and back again. It was a perfect surprise.

I motioned to Jenkins to close the door of my friend's bedroom. So far, he had evidently slept serenely through all the trouble, and, if possible, I wanted to avoid arousing him now. For a fat man, Billings had the deuce of a temper when stirred up over anything like an imposition upon him, and it would only add to the confusion for him to appear on the scene and learn about his wallet and his treasured ruby that I had rescued.

Foxy Grandpa's face had been rapidly undergoing a change. From pallor to pink it went; and then from pink to red. Now it was becoming scarlet. He threw his head back and faced me angrily.

"Lightnut, will you tell me what the h.e.l.l this means?" And his heavy voice thundered.

"Here! Here! That'll be enough o' that," cried Officer O'Keefe sharply.

"None of your grand-stand play here, or it'll be the worse for you. And no tricks, Braxton, or--"

He clutched his stick menacingly.

"Braxton!" snorted the old fellow. "Why, you born fool, my name's not Braxton!"

"Not now," grinned O'Keefe. "Say, what _is_ your name now, Foxy?"

"My name--" roared Foxy Grandpa, and paused abruptly. He looked rather blankly from one officer to the other.

"See here; do I understand I'm under arrest?" he inquired.

"You certainly are talking, Foxy," chuckled O'Keefe.

"Then my name's Doe--John Doe," and I thought the fellow's quick glance at me held an appeal. Of what sort, I had no idea.

"And what, may I ask, is the charge?" he asked again, with what was apparently a great effort at calmness.

"Oh, come now, Braxton," said the officer in a tone of disgust, "stop your foolery; you're just using up time. Ain't it enough that you're in this building and in this gentleman's rooms?"

"In his rooms!" exploded Foxy Grandpa. "Why, you lunkhead, this gentleman will tell you I am his guest!" He turned to me with 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 surrept.i.tious 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, d.i.c.ky."

I looked at him severely.

"Oh, I say, don't call me 'd.i.c.ky,' 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 cla.s.sed 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.