"Drop it, little one--drop it--or I'll break your arm," said Mike.
Sadie shrieked with pain, but she dropt her revolver and Mike pocketed it.
"I'll get you for that!" she screamed.
Her father leaned forward in his chair. "Shut up, you idiot!" he said coldly and deliberately slapped her across the mouth with his open hand. "We've had enough from you for one evening. Mike was perfectly right to stop you. Perkins is going to do this job, and you know why he is going to do it. I'll have no more argument from you. Keep still now, until you have my permission to speak."
"But I tell you I'll have nothing to do with it," repeated Perkins, and attempted to light with trembling fingers the half-burned cigar he was chewing.
Doctor Martinelli swung round in his chair. "You'll do as you're told," he said through clenched teeth. "A little persuasion of the kind I have in mind has been known to make braver men than you change their opinions, Mr. Harry Perkins!" He glared at the cashier, who dropped his eyes--and the cigar--at one and the same moment.
"That's the way, Doc," applauded Mike, getting to his feet. "We've been sittin' round this table so long we're all getting stale. What we need's a little excitement."
He pointed to Dorothy and Bill.
"I'll take these two down stairs and stick them in the old wine cellar. They'll keep fine and dandy down there. Later, when Mr. Perkins sees reason he can run down and finish them off. While I'm gone, Johnny, you beat it out to the woodshed and fetch in a length of garden hose." He guffawed--"I guess you know that trick--the bulls have made it pretty popular?"
The lame man smiled and nodded.