Just then I hears a gurgle, like some one's bein' choked with a chicken bone, and I squints around behind. There was Piddie, lookin' like the buildin' was fallin' down and tryin' to uncork some remarks.
"Ah, Piddie!" says the gent. "Perhaps you will introduce me to your new sentry and give me the password."
Well, Piddie did. He almost got on his hands and knees doin' it. And say, blamed if the duck wa'n't Mr. Robert, after all!
"Gee!" says I, "that was a bad break."
That didn't soothe Piddie, though. He used up the best part of an hour tryin' to tell me what an awful thing I'd gone and done.
"This ends you, young man!" he says. "You're as good as discharged this very moment."
"Is that all?" says I. "Why, by the way you've been takin' on I figured on nothin' less than sudden death. But if it's only bein' fired, don't you worry. I've had that happen to me so often that I get uneasy without it. If I should wear a stripe for every time the can's been tied to me, my sleeves would look like a couple of barber's poles. Cheer up, Piddie! Maybe they'll let you pick out somethin' that suits you better next time."
He couldn't get over it, though. Along about lunch time he comes out to me, as solemn as though he's servin' a warrant for homicide, and says that Mr. Robert will attend to my case now.
"Piddie," says I, givin' him the partin' grip, "you've been a true friend of mine. When you hear me hit the asphalt, send out for a chocolate ice cream soda and drown your sorrow."
Then I turns down a page in "Old Sleuth's Revenge" and goes to the slaughter.