Page:MacGrath--The drums of jeopardy.djvu/269

Rh that, either. Of course he had hidden the stones either in Gregor's apartment or in Kitty's. Blind as a bat. Now he understood why Karlov had made a prisoner of Coles. The old buzzard had sensed a trap and had countered it. The way of the transgressor was hard. His punishment for entertaining a looter's idea would be work when he wanted to loaf and enjoy himself.

Arriving at Hawksley's door he was confronted by a spectacle not without its humorous touch: The nurse extending a bowl and Hawksley staring at the sky beyond the window, stonily.

"But you must!" insisted Miss Frances. "Chops or beef steak!"

"It will give you nausea." "Permit me to find out. Dash it, I'm hungry!" Hawksley declared. "I'm no fever patient. A smart rap on the head; nothing more than that. Healthy food will draw the blood down from there. Haven't lost anything but a few hours of consciousness, and you treat me as though I'd been jolly well peppered with shrapnel and gassed. Touch that stuff? Rather not! Chops or beefsteak!"

"Let him have it, Miss Frances," advised Cutty from the doorway.

"But it's unusual," replied the nurse as a final protest.

"Give it a try. Is he strong enough to sit up through breakfast?"