Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/170

158 There was an uneasy stir about the room, but I paid small attention to that, for 1 had more serious things to think of.

I began to have a convulsion of the real sort, just about that time, for my big doctor had taken a hypodermic from his pocket and was doing his best to get the business-end of it somewhere into the fleshy part of my shoulder. And I didn't intend to stand for any needle-pumping. I began to fight in earnest then, to fight like a wild-cat.

"This looks bad, very bad!" I could hear him say in a somewhat strangled voice, for it was taking about all his strength to hold me down and at the same time keep one fat hand over my mouth. And while he was doing this, since he insisted on thrusting that gross thumb of his against my mouth, I closed my teeth on it. And I didn't make it a half-hearted bite, either. It at least showed him that I was in fighting form. For I could hear him suddenly gasp to the others close behind him. "For God's sake get these people away! Get 'em out of here before something happens!"

I could hear Ezra Bartlett's thin-voiced commands to clear the room.

There was a scuffling of feet and a movement toward the door. But I scarcely knew when that