“It was,” he nodded, “yesterday morning at this time.”

“Tutter’s the burg I’m looking for,” informed smarty.

“When did you lose it?” I inquired, innocent-like.

“Lose it?”

“You said you were looking for it.”

I was supposed to get wabbly knees under the [[145]]sharp scowl that he shot at me. But the old knee joints were out of wabbles this morning.

“Don’t git fresh with me,” he said darkly, “or I may taken a sudden notion to push your face clean through the back of your head.”

“All in one push?” I inquired, steady-like.

His legs were out of sight in the car, so I didn’t know what he measured standing up. But I figured that he wasn’t much bigger than me. And what if he was? I wasn’t scared of him.

“I guess,” he said, important-like, “that you don’t know who I am.”