Page:Biggers and Ritchie - Inside the Lines.djvu/130

 "Close in! March!" commanded the sergeant. The guard surrounded the hapless barber and wheeled through the door, their guns hedging his white jacket about inexorably. Sherman's hands spread his coat tails wide apart, and he rocked back and forth on heels and toes, his eyes smoldering.

"Come on, father"—Kitty had slipped her hand through her dad's arm, and was imparting direct strategy in a low voice—"we'll take mother down the street to look at the shops and make her forget our troubles. They've got some wonderful Moroccan bazaars in town; Baedeker says so."

"Shops, did you say?" Mrs. Sherman perked up at once, forgetting her grief under the superior lure.

"Yes, mother. Come on, let's go down and look 'em over." Sherman's good humor was quite restored. He pinched Kitty's arm in compliment for her guile. "Maybe they'll let us look at their stuff without charging anything; but we couldn't buy a postage stamp, remember."

They sailed out into the crowded street and