Jesse came to a full stop at the threat of being treated to a pair of broken arms. He was twice the size of the Japanese, but the difference in their sizes was more than compensated for by his own cravenness and the valet's mastery of the bone-breaking art. Mutsu, never taking his eyes off Jesse, got out his two suit-cases and packed them carefully and deliberately. Jesse, striding up and down and storming, seized a heavy jade ornament from a mantel, when Mutsu was about half through with his packing task, and drew it back as if to heave it at the valet; but Mutsu, making two agile backward steps, grabbed one of Jesse's pistols which lay on top of the tray of an open trunk, and thus waited for the missile. Jesse replaced the jade ornament on the mantel and resumed his striding up and down. When the Japanese had finished his packing, he consulted a little notebook and, totting up a column of expenditures, found that Jesse owed him fifteen pounds.
"You pay now and permanent I quit," the Japanese said to Jesse, and the latter threw his wallet on a table.
"Take it out of that, you dirty little mandril," he growled to Mutsu, "and be on your way before I have you handed over on the charge of being a thief."
"Just that you try," replied Mutsu, breathing hard, as he counted over the money that was due him, "and I—you see where you get off—just that you try! Your name like fertilizer I would make!"
Then Mutsu stuffed the amount that was due him into his pocket, tossing the rest of the money on to the table, clapped on his hat, picked up his pair of suit-cases, and walked out, flying the gonfalon of victory. He went straight to the Savoy, and was taken into the service of Laura Stedham the instant he made his appearance before her.
Jesse, wearing a thoroughly whipped look, huddled in a deep chair for hours after Mutsu's departure. The chair was close enough to his brandy bottle to enable him to apply himself to it at startlingly frequent intervals. The first "transaction" of his life, having to do with women, had gone flatly against him. He ground his teeth as he drunkenly pondered that irrefutable fact. He had no fear of the consequences of his attempt to enmesh Louise Treharne. Her only male protector, he knew, was on the other side of the sea. But it was the knowledge that he had utterly and finally lost out in the most diligent and ingenious attempt he had ever made upon a feminine citadel that enraged him. He did not even have the satisfaction of framing reprisals. What reprisals could he attempt? And they could avail him nothing even if he succeeded in setting such revengeful machinery in motion.
Jesse was considerably more than middling drunk when, his brandy having receded to the lees, he summoned the obsequious Gaskins.
"Anybody above or below me here now?" he inquired of Gaskins.
"No, sir," replied Gaskins. "The gentleman that 'as the hapartment below is abroad, hand the gentleman that 'as the hapartment above only comes 'ere occasionally, sir, for a little hamusement—'e's married now, sir."
"Well, that's good," said Jesse, reeling about. "That'll let me have the whole damned outfit for my parties for the next ten days or so, eh?"