As, rounding the corner, he stretched out in swifter stride, Kirkwood was inspired to put a spoke in his wheel; and a foot thrust suddenly out from behind the gate-post accomplished his purpose with more success than he had dared anticipate. Stumbling, the mate plunged headlong, arms and legs a-sprawl; and the momentum of his pace, though checked, carried him along the sidewalk, face downwards, a full yard ere he could stay himself.
Kirkwood stepped out of the gateway and sheered off as Hobbs picked himself up; something which he did rather slowly, as if in a daze, without comprehension of the cause of his misfortune. And for a moment he stood pulling his wits together and swaying as though on the point of resuming his rudely interrupted chase; when the noise of Kirkwood's heels brought him about face in a twinkling.
"Ow, it's you, eh!" he snarled in a temper as vicious as his countenance; and both of these were much the worse for wear and tear.
"Myself," admitted Kirkwood fairly; and then, in a gleam of humor: "Weren't you looking for me?"
His rage seemed to take the little Cockney and shake him by the throat; he trembled from head to foot, his face shockingly congested, and spat out dust and fragments of lurid blasphemy like an infuriated cat.
Of a sudden, "W'ere's the gel?" he sputtered thickly as his quick shifting eyes for the first time noted Dorothy's absence.
"Miss Calendar has other business—none with you. I've taken the liberty of stopping you because I have a word or two—"
"Ow, you 'ave, 'ave you? Gawd strike me blind, but I've a word for you, too!... 'And over that bag—and look nippy, or I'll myke you pye for w'at you've done to me ... I'll myke you pye!" he iterated hoarsely, edging closer. "'And it over or—"
"You've got another guess—" Kirkwood began, but saved his breath in deference to an imperative demand on him for instant defensive action.
To some extent he had underestimated the brute courage of the fellow, the violent, desperate courage that is distilled of anger in men of his kind. Despising him, deeming him incapable of any overt act of villainy, Kirkwood had been a little less wary than he would have been with Calendar or Mulready. Hobbs had seemed more of the craven type which Stryker graced so conspicuously. But now the American was to be taught discrimination, to learn that if Stryker's nature was like a snake's for low cunning and deviousness, Hobbs' soul was the soul of a viper.