"Well, I be blanked! I beg your pardon, Mr. Macgregor. Ike, you're a cool one. You've got the nerve of—"
Here The Kid began to laugh, and Shock, all unsuspecting of Ike's scheme for getting his boss out of the clutches of his spoilers, gazed from the one to the other with an air of such absolute perplexity that The Kid went off into immoderate fits of laughter. Ike's gravity remained unbroken.
"All the same, boss," he said, "you want to keep an eye on that outfit. They'll get even. That man Crawley and the Inspector aint goin' to rest easy where they are. Marks like what you put on 'em burn to the bone."
"They cannot hurt me, Ike," said the Kid lightly, "and I think they will be afraid to try. But Mr. Macgregor here has got into trouble. Is not Macfarren a church warden, or something, in your Church?"
"He is a manager, I think," said Shock. "Pretty much the same thing."
"Well, he is a man to look out for. I can get along without him, but you cannot, can you? I mean, he can hurt you."
"No," said Shock quietly, "he cannot hurt me. The only man that can hurt me is myself. No other man can. And besides," he added, pulling a little Bible out of his pocket, "I have a Keeper, as Ike said."
As Shock opened the little Bible he became conscious of a sense of mastery. His opportunity had come.
"Listen to this," he said, and he read in a voice of assured conviction:
"The Lord is thy keeper.
The Lord shall keep thee from all evil.
He shall keep thy soul.
The Lord shall keep thy going out and thy coming in.
From this time forth and forevermore."