"I'll have the law—"
"Law be hanged!"
"If it costs me a million, I'll get—"
"It will cost you a million if you don't get!" I advised him, seeing that he paused for want of breath.
I left him standing there, but had the presence of mind to wave my huge henchmen away. Mr. Riley-Werkheimer approached, but very pacifically. He was paler than he will ever be again in his life, I fear.
"This is most distressing, most distressing, Mr.— Mr.— ahem! I've never been so outraged in my life. I—but, wait!" He had caught the snap in my atavistic eye. "I am not seeking trouble. We will go, sir. I—I—I think my wife has quite recovered. Are—are you all right, my dear?"
I stood aside and let them file past me. Mrs. Riley-Werkheimer moved very nimbly for one who had just been revived by smelling-salts. As her husband went by, he half halted in front of me. A curious glitter leaped into his fishy eyes.
"I'd give a thousand dollars to be free to do what you did to that insufferable puppy, Mr.—Mr.—ahem. A cool thousand, damn him!"
I had my coffee upstairs, far removed from the onions. A racking headache set in. Never again will I go without my coffee so long. It always gives me a headache.