The two marauders humored his whim.
"Let me explain," said Jimmy pacifically, shuffling warily around in order to face the bull-terrier, who was now strolling in his direction with an ill-assumed carelessness.
"Keep still, you blackguard!"
Jimmy kept still. The bull-terrier, with the same abstracted air, was beginning a casual inspection of his right trouser-leg.
Relations between Spike and the bull-dog, meanwhile, had become more strained. The sudden flinging up of the former's arms had had the worst effects on the animal's nerves. Spike, the croucher on all-fours, he might have tolerated; but Spike, the semaphore, inspired him with thoughts of battle. He was growling in a moody, reflective manner. His eye was full of purpose.
It was probably this that caused Spike to look at the householder. Till then, he had been too busy to shift his gaze, but now the bull-dog's eye had become so unpleasing that he cast a pathetic glance up at the man by the door.
"Gee!" he cried. "It's de boss. Say, boss, call off de dawg. It's sure goin' to nip de hull head off'n me."
The other lowered the revolver in surprise.
"So, it's you, you limb of Satan!" he remarked. "I thought I had seen that damned red head of yours before. What are you doing in my house?"
Spike uttered a howl in which indignation and self-pity were nicely blended.