“Shake, old man,” he said, with feeling. “I never knew any man could pack away food like that and live to tell the story. I used to think I was fairly good myself, but now I’ve got to admit that I’m not even in your class.”
“I always knew that, but I never thought you’d come around to my way of thinking,” answered Jim with a grin. “I feel now as though I could lick my weight in wildcats. Let’s go back and clean out that joint on Seventeenth Street.”
“You can go if you’re looking for a quick death,” said Joe. “Personally, I’d just as soon live a little longer. Besides, I’ve promised McRae that we’ll report to him as soon as possible. Those hands of yours need a doctor’s attention, too.”
“They can still handle a knife and fork,” said Jim complacently.
Joe and Jim found McRae at his hotel, but he would not listen to a word until he had taken Jim to a doctor and his hands were swathed in white bandages. Then they went back to the hotel, and the manager listened to Jim’s story, with many grunts and interjections and angry mutterings.
[CHAPTER XXVII]
LARRY HAS HIS SAY
“I’m so glad to have both of you back, safe and sound, that I can’t sit down right now and figure out the best way to punish those scoundrels,” McRae said, when the recital was ended. “You’ve both shown wonderful pluck and nerve, and I’m proud of you. I’d have given quite a few dollars to have been around when that scrap down by the East River started. I haven’t been in a real good fracas for a long time, and it would surely have been a pleasure to have landed on one or two of those rascals. You must have put up a peach of a scrap to get away from them as neatly as you did.”
“It’s a wonder they didn’t start some gun play,” remarked Joe. “We’d have been out of luck for fair if they had.”