CHAPTER XSHOWS HOW MRS. KRETZ SPOKE HER MIND
BAT SCANLON stood for a space under the neighbourly tree; he could hear the drawn man coughing away into the gloom at the foot of the hill.
“Now,” observed he, “am I indeed over my head. Not only have we one man in this little matter who is so far through that he must be shoved along in a chair, but here comes another who goes wheezing around on one lung and throwing hints of a threatening nature.”
He slipped an automatic pistol from his hip pocket—a black, bulky, deadly thing; and he smoothed it with a feeling of satisfaction.
“Hints are all very well,” he went on; “but they never did any harm, and they never got anybody anything. Doing’s what counts; and all I’ve got to say is, let somebody start doing something I don’t like.”
Thinking it
