"Were you to withhold the message altogether, or were you merely to delay this young man?"
"You are insulting!" repeated the other.
"Who bribed you?" came the next question, snapped out like the crack of a lash.
"You have the message," the assistant manager said. "Get out."
"Only for the marines you'd put me out!" laughed the consul.
"Indeed I would!"
Hans made a threatening gesture toward the fellow and he hastened to the protection of the counter.
"My office is only a short distance away," said the consul, turning to
Ned. "We may as well go there and size this extraordinary situation up.
I hardly know what to make of it."
"There is one thing you, perhaps, do not understand," Ned said, "and that is that Captain Martin, in charge of this squad, has been taken into custody by order of the detective Hans knocked out a moment ago."
The consul's face turned red with anger. He seized the assistant manager by the shoulder and shook him, over the counter, as a dog shakes a rat.