Mr. Superbus sat down limply.
“You ain’t half putting the wind up me!” he said fretfully.
Dempsi bent over him, speaking softly.
“To-night I sleep in sound of your voice. Have no hesitation in calling me. Perhaps I may arrive in time to save you. I pray that this may be. I like you. We are—who knows?—kinsmen. He who strikes you, strikes me—Guiseppi Dempsi.”
Mr. Superbus got up; his knees were without strength, his tongue was parched.
“Well, if you’re sleeping here, and Mr. Bobbie is sleeping here, there doesn’t seem any call for me to stay, does there? Not that it worries me. Far from it. Danger is always welcome to a Superbus. It’s my good lady I’m thinking of. I was going to sleep in this room. Seems silly.”
“I shall be on hand,” said Mr. Dempsi, and examined the short-barrelled revolver he had taken from his hip pocket.
Julius almost swooned.
“I’m a match for any man of my own weight,” he said, his voice trembling as he thought of the terrible risk which any burglar of his own weight would run, “if he’ll only give me a chance. But they don’t give you a chance. They’re on you before you know where you are—is that fair?”
Dempsi did not answer. Aunt Lizzie had chosen that moment to wander into the room. Julius seized the opportunity to steal from the unnecessary gaiety that shone through Mr. Dempsi’s sympathy—his eagerness to frame epitaphs which Julius would never see, his cold-blooded plottings for the future of his good lady.