At once, blind to all else, and goaded intolerably by his knowledge that the time was short if he were to forestall November at the asylum in Oscahana, he pelted hot-foot after the delinquent; came up with him in a trice; tapped him smartly on the shoulder.
"Here!" he cried indignantly—"what the deuce's the matter with you?"
The man showed him a face pale with excitement; recognised his employer; but made no offer to stir.
"Come!" P. Sybarite insisted irascibly. "I've no time to waste. Get a move on you, man!"
But as he spoke his accents were blotted out by a repetition of that portentous noise which had saluted him in the lobby of the Monastery, a moment since.
His eyes, veering inevitably toward the source of that uproar, found it quickly enough to see short, vicious jets of flame licking out against the gloom of an open garage doorway, nearly opposite the Hippodrome stage entrance—something like a hundred feet down the street.
"What," he cried, "in Hades—!"
"Gang fight," his chauffeur informed him briefly: "fly-cops cornered a bunch of 'em in November's garage—"
"Whose garage—?"
"Red November's! Guess you've heard of him," the man pursued eagerly. "That's right—he runs his own garage—taxis for Dutch House souses, yunno—"