Shirley closed his eyes, and passed his hand over his own chest—along the armpits—behind his ears—he seemed to be mentally enumerating some list of nerve centers. The physician observed him curiously.
“I have it, doctor! The sen-si-yao!”
“What do you mean?”
“The most powerful and secret of all the death-strokes of the Japanese art of jiu-jitsu fighting. I paid two thousand dollars to learn the course from a visiting instructor when I was in college. It was worth it for this one occasion.”
Shirley arose to his feet, and approached the other, touching his shoulder.
“Stand up, if you please. Let me ask if this was the location of the mark?”
The physician, interested in this new professional phase, readily obeyed. One quick movement of Shirley's muscular hand, the thumb oddly twisted and stiffened, and a sudden jab in the doctor's abdomen made that gentleman gasp with pain. Shirley's expression was triumphant, but the professor regarded him with an expression of terror.
“Oh! Ugh!—What-did-you-do-to me?” he murmured thickly, when he was at last able to speak.
“Merely demonstrated the beginning of the death punch which I named. That pressure if continued for half a minute would have been fatal.”
“I wish you would teach me that,” was the physician's natural request, as he nodded with a wry face.