“Worra! Worra!” yelled Barney. “It’s a mane thrick fer ther loikes av you to play on me, Frank.”
“I didn’t play any trick on you, Barney,” replied the inventor, in surprise.
“D’yer mane ter say yer didn’t soak me wid a cobble sthone?”
“I most certainly did not.”
“Feel av me head; it’s broken intoirely, an’——”
Biff! came another nut just then.
It caught Barney in the breadbasket, made him grunt, and he doubled up and fell to the ground.
As he did so the lightning flashed, and he saw the grinning face of Pomp in the top of the tree.
“It’s that ebony gorilla!” he howled, and he sprang to his feet, spit on his hands, danced up and down, and waving his fists, he yelled:
“Come down out av that, ye pug-nosed bandit, till I take a lung out av yer!”