"Ah—I say!" he pipes, glarin' at the Kid. "This is getting jolly annoying, my man. It appears that every time we meet, you have just committed a murderous assault upon my dresser! Since you are the—ah—champion fighter of the universe, why do you not joust with more of its inhabitants and not center your activities upon one who knows nothing of the art of self-defense?"
The Kid grunts, takin' away Tony's guns and removin' a couple of them long banana knives from his clothes. Meanwhile, the daredevil dresser is showin' no more signs of life than a sleepin' alligator, so I figured it was about time to pull a little first aid stuff. I turned him over on his back and took off his coat, grabbin' it by the bottom and holdin' it up. They was a sudden crash and—Sweet Cookie! A lot of things fell on the ground, among 'em bein' one set of brass knuckles, one blackjack, two more guns, a thing that looked like a bayonet, five boxes of cartridges, a small bottle of nitro-glycerine and three sticks of dynamite! The last two fell in the folds of the coat, or we'd all have gone away from there. Tony's master looks at the layout with his eyes stickin' so far out of his head you could have knocked 'em off with a cane.
Scanlan eyes him and laughs.
"This is the bird which don't know nothin' about self-defense, eh?" he grins, pointin' to Tony. "Well, if he'd been in Belgium a few years ago, I bet the Germans would never have got through!"
"Oh, I say!" gasps Van Ness. "This is a bit of a shock! Why the fellow is a walking arsenal!"
"He's more like a sleepin' fort, now!" I says, pointin' to Tony on the turf.
"Look at the chances you been takin' havin' a guy like that fasten your garters and so forth," pipes Scanlan. "You ought to thank us for exposin' him!"
Then Tony comes to life and havin' helped him down, the Kid helps him up.
"Sapristi!" remarks Tony, glarin' at him. "You bigga stiffa! Sometime Tony he'sa feexa you for dis! Whata you hitta me with?"
"I think it was a left hook," the Kid tells him, rubbin' his chin, like he ain't sure.