"I was just givin' 'er a lift."
"Where to?"
"That's none o' your muckin' business."
"Oh no?" The Saint's voice was amiable and unruffled. "Pretty lucky she was all dressed up ready to go riding in a lorry, wasn't it?"
The man tightened his jaw and stood silent, scowling at the Saint with grim intensity. He was, as a matter of fact, just starting to experience that incredulity of his own recollections of his recent flight through the air which has been referred to before; he was a big man, and he was thinking that he would like to see an attempt to repeat the performance.
The jar of Hoppy's gun grinding roughly into his side made him half turn with a darkening glare.
"Dijja hear de boss ask you a question?" enquired Mr Uniatz with all the dulcet persuasiveness of a foghorn.
"You ruddy barstard—"
"That '11 do," Simon intervened crisply. "And I wouldn't take any chances with my health if I were you, brother. That Betsy of Hoppy's would just about blow you in half, and he's rather sensitive about his family. We'll go on talking to you presently."
He turned to the others.