“Hold on, hold on!” spluttered Bigelow, managing to get in the enraged policeman’s way. “Let’s have an understanding.”
“An ondershtandin’?” howled Maloney. “Oi’ll give him an ondershtandin’!”
Tucker started to crawl from beneath the couch, but the enraged Irishman hurled Bigelow staggering to one side, and, getting his feet tangled, the fat boy spun like a top and finished by sitting down heavily on Tucker’s head.
Thump! thump! thump! It was Buckhart pounding furiously on the sink door in an effort to get out.
“Yow! yow!” squawked Tucker smotheredly; “my nose—you’ve smashed my nose!”
Having clung fast to the hatpin, he now jabbed it fiercely into Bigelow, who gave a wild yell of pain and rolled out into the middle of the room just in time to catch Officer Maloney’s foot and send him sprawling.
“Heaven sakes!” palpitated Maggie Swazey, with uplifted hands. “This is terrible!”
Dick saw his opportunity now and embraced it. He did not wait for Maloney to rise, but promptly ducked for the back door and disappeared into outer darkness.
CHAPTER XXV.
REFUGE IN THE RIVER.
Although he did not fully understand the rather surprising affair, Policeman Dennis Maloney was now satisfied that his sweetheart, Maggie Swazey, had been outrageously imposed upon by the scrubby-bearded, red-faced, blue-coated, brass-buttoned individual he had accidentally discovered there in the kitchen. What part the three boys had taken in the affair he could not understand. In fact, he was decidedly bewildered and vexed, but, at the same time, his fighting blood was aroused and he vowed terrible vengeance on Patrick McGee if he could but once get his hands on that deceiving scoundrel.