“ It was you who cleaned out the entire population of—” Fatty exploded, ere he could check his speech.
The one hand of Bruce Cadogan Cavendish flashed pocketward and flashed back with the quoit balanced ripe for business.
“ Proceed,” Fatty sighed. “I . . . I have quite forgotten what I was going to say.”
“ Beastly funny country over that way,” the narrator drawled with perfect casualness. “You’ve read this Sea Wolf stuff—”
“ You weren’t the Sea Wolf,” Whiskers broke in with involuntary positiveness.
“ No, sir,” was the snarling answer. “The Sea Wolf’s dead, isn’t he? And I’m still alive, aren’t I?”
“ Of course, of course,” Whiskers conceded. “He suffocated head-first in the mud off a wharf in Victoria a couple of years back.”
“ As I was saying—and I don’t like interrupti
