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Rh telephone—and we was watchin' you before that, trailin' a man."

"Yeh?" Muggs asked.

"Yeh! And now you're goin' to do a little explainin'."

"Let's see you make me!" Muggs exclaimed.

"We ain't goin' to try to make yeh. There's another man to do that. You get up and we'll tie your hands behind your back, in case you want to get violent and beat somebody up. And if you start a fight again, we'll just wallop the everlastin' face off you. Get me?"

They lifted Muggs up. He started to struggle, but was no match for them. They held him, and lashed his wrists together behind his back with fish cord. Then they thrust him along a narrow hall and to a door.

One of them pressed a button, and Muggs heard a bell tinkle. Then a buzzer sounded.

"In you go!" one of the fishermen said.

They opened the door and thrust him forward, and he heard the door slammed behind him. Muggs blinked his eyes rapidly, for the hall had been half dark, and the apartment in which he now stood was lighted brilliantly.

He saw a room with expensive furnishings. A long table was in the middle of it, heavy chairs were scattered around, and before him was a man dressed in a black robe, with a black mask on his face, and a flaming star of jet on his hood.

"Greetings, my dear Muggs!" the Black Star said. "I regret it if some of my men handled you roughly, but then you are inclined to violence yourself."

"You—you" Muggs gasped.