Page:Arthur Stringer - Twin Tales.djvu/167

Rh from a milk-snake coiled up in a chocolate-box. Her eyes were blazing.

"Now I know you're no better than"

But that was as far as Teddie got. For the door was flung open and a protesting and much dishevelled Louis Lipsett was piloted into the room. He was piloted in without ceremony, and by the lapel of his overcoat. The hand that grasped that collar was Gunboat Dorgan's, and the lines of his wide mouth were grim with determination.

"Call off this wildcat," gasped Louis as he dropped weakly into a chair. "Call him or I'll get a shooting-iron and kill him!"

Gerry tried to remove the steel-corded hand from the uptwisted coat-collar, but Gunboat Dorgan betrayed no slightest intention of relaxing his hold.

"Not on your life," he irately announced. "Not until he eats every word of it!"

"Of what?" demanded Gerry, with an abstracted and mildly perplexed inspection of Louis Lipsett's person.