Joe Henry frowned, and Pie-Wagon Pete shook his head.
“If you’ll take my advice, Gubby,” he said, “you’ll drop that case right here an’ now. You don’t know what dangerous characters them gools are. If they start to get you—”
“You want to read that book—‘The Pale Avengers’—I just gave you,” said Billy Getz, “and then you’ll know more.”
“Well, I won’t interfere with you, Mr. Henry,” said Philo Gubb. “But I’ll do my dooty as I see it. Fear don’t frighten me. The first words in Lesson One is these: ‘The deteckative must be a man devoid of fear.’ I can’t go back on that. If them gools want to kill me, I can’t object. Deteckating is a dangerous employment, and I know it.”
He went out and closed the door.
“There,” said Pie-Wagon Pete. “Ain’t that better than beatin’ him up?”
“Maybe,” said Joe Henry grudgingly. “Chances are—he’s such a dummy—he’ll go right ahead follerin’ me. He needs a good scare thrown into him.”
Billy Getz slid from his stool and ran his hands deep into his pockets, jingling a few coins and a bunch of keys.
“Want me to scare him?” he asked pleasantly.
“Say! You can do it, too!” said Joe Henry eagerly. “You’re the feller that can kid him to death. Go ahead. If you do, I’ll give you a case of Six Star. Ain’t that so, Pete?”