"We'll see about that. He'll know that no boy could send a grown man headlong into the gutter as you did."
"Did I?" he cried excitedly.
The truth was that he did not; but there seemed a chance of doing him a good turn, so I described a little fictional incident of the sort, telling him that he was too excited at the moment to remember anything. "It was the turning point of the whole show, Hans, for if the beggar hadn't been downed at that very moment, they'd have got us to a cert."
"Do you think Nita saw it?" he cried boyishly.
"How could she, when her mother was lying all but fainting on the pavement? She wanted all her eyes for her."
"Just my luck!" he exclaimed with a disconsolate toss of the head, as we went downstairs.
Nita and her mother had also been using the time to repair, and both of them appeared to have rallied from the shock. I had to go through more of the thanksgiving ceremonial. Only the plea of an urgent engagement got me out of a most pressing invitation to remain to supper in order to be thanked over again by the Baron; and I had to stem the torrent of gratitude by bringing Hans' part into action.
"It's awfully sweet of you to give me all the credit, my dear madam, but you're overlooking my cousin's part; and you owe quite as much to him. I'm afraid there would have been a very different tale to tell, if he had not come up when he did."
"I didn't know that," she exclaimed in great surprise; and I saw Hans and Nita, who were snugging it together in a corner, prick up their ears.
"I don't want to make him blush," I replied, lowering my voice, and repeated the fable I had told him in the bathroom, garnishing it with one or two more or less artistic touches.