Burley began to abuse him at the top of his lungs.
"For a penny, I'd break every bone in your body," he shouted.
"I'll give you twice that sum to refrain," said Robert coolly.
Burley's latent bestiality was now thoroughly aroused. Breathing threatenings and slaughter, he advanced towards Robert, working himself into a greater passion and shaking his fist more savagely every step of the way. Cornelia screamed and threw herself in the huge man's path. After a tussle of a few seconds, during which her cries rang through the open door, he shoved her forcibly aside. Robert's slim stature was already poised for the uneven combat, when a tall, agile, coatless figure dashed in from the adjoining apartment and deftly arrested the fist that Burley was sending with considerable momentum towards Robert's pale face.
"This way out!" exclaimed the newcomer in a voice almost ludicrously gentle.
But there was nothing gentle about his strength. The thwarted man sputtered abusive, incoherent indecencies. In vain. His expletives were cut short by two hands of steel that whirled his lumbering hulk forward, steered him past Cornelia with professional adroitness, and escorted him irresistibly into the corridor. A moment later an inchoate mass of humanity was torpedoed, with projectile swiftness, down the first flight of stairs. To make doubly sure, the direct actionist followed his missile.
Rumblings, sputterings and groans ascended discordantly up the stairway. Presently the noise grew fitful and then more and more subdued, as if some one had damped Vesuvius or banked its fires for the night. At length came silence.
Cornelia had sunk into a chair over which Robert was solicitously bending when Burley's subjugator returned. In reply to Cornelia's thanks he blushed like a boy and hid his embarrassment by edging towards the door.
In the hall outside he deprecated Robert's warm words.
"Just practice work," he said, in the same mild voice and Manhattan accent. "A little trick of concentration. A man brings all his muscular power to bear on a few weak points. And joints. The Japs can teach you. So can I."