It was the landlady's daughter, attended by a cavalier in the person of a stolid young man of German extraction, as I thought at first glance, and this was confirmed by Blister's, "Let me make you acquainted with Miss Malloy," and "Shake hands with Mister Shultz."
Then began the by no means unskilful playing of one lover against the other. She sat, a queen—the bale of straw a throne—and dispensed royal favors impartially; a dimple melting to a smile, a frown changed by feminine magic into a delicious pout.
In the moonlight she was exceedingly lovely. She seemed unapproachable, elusive, mysterious, and yet her art touched the material. She contrived to bring out how successful Mister Shultz was in the bakery business, and in the next breath told nonchalantly of the vast sums acquired by a race-horse trainer.
She appealed to Blister to corroborate this.
"Isn't that so, Mister Jones? Didn't you tell me you get fifty dollars a week for training one horse?"
Blister was not above impressing his rival, it seemed. He nodded to this deceptive question. And since he had nine horses in his "string," the worthy German's eyes bulged.
At last I rose to go and our little circle broke up. The girl, with a coquettish good night to me, moved away from us and stood with her back to the stalls, her face lifted to the moon.
"Good night, ole Four Eyes!" said Blister, and gave my hand a friendly pressure, just as a rattling sound attracted my eyes to the barred stall.
The lower door was swinging open. A powerful neck had tossed the bars from their sockets. This was the rattle I had heard, as Death came out of that stall, huge and terrible, to rear above the unconscious white figure in the moonlight.
My look of horror swung Blister about. I saw him dive headlong, and the white figure was knocked to safety as the man-killer's forefeet struck Blister down.