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 me peach! You never heard me say a word! It's a lie!"

Blake strode to the middle of the room, towering above the other figures, dwarfing them by his great bulk, as assured of his mastery as he would have been in a Chatham Square gang fight.

"What 's the row here?" he thundered, knowing from the past that power promptly won its own respect. "What 're you talking about, you two?" He turned from one intruder to another. "And you? And you? What do you want, anyway?"

The three contending figures, however, ignored him as though he were a tobacconist's dummy. They went on with their exotic cackle, as though he was no longer in their midst. They did not so much as turn an eye in his direction. And still Blake felt reasonably sure of his position.

It was not until the woman squeaked, like a frightened mouse, and ran whimpering into the corner of the room, that he realized what was happening. He was not familiar with