Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/38

 might've fanned the bean-boxes off some o' you folks!"

"You make me sick!" said the disgusted one, still preoccupiedly feeling about a bruised shoulder. "What'd you suppose it's called Secret Service for, if you've got to advertise it on every street-corner?"

The officer was slow to comprehend the situation.

"But I thought Wilkie only muckraked round after counterfeiters."

"He does any old thing his Uncle Sam sets him at."

"Then what're they holdin up that quiet-lookin young feller for? What're they runnin' him in for, anyway?"

"Mebbe they don't want him to sail to-morrow."

"But why shouldn't he sail to-morrow? Has he done anything?"

"Oh, cut it out!—cut it out! and get me to the nearest drugstore. I hate dirty work like this!"

"Then why're you doin' it?"

The other man did not answer, and the question was repeated.

"War's war!" was all he said. And he emitted the laconism as though he had no love for the subject from which it sprang.