"You're goin' to reward her for sittin' on Cousin Ralph so long," says I. "Give her one of the fives. You can slip the other to him as we shoo him through the back door. Now, let's go relieve Mrs. Flynn."
From the rough way we collared Ralph and led him off, she must have thought we was headin' him straight for Sing Sing. Anyway, that five-spot kept her mind busy.
Our remarks to Ralph were short but meaty. "You see the bally muss you got me into, I hope," says Tidman.
"And just remember," I adds, "when the fit strikes you to call again, that Mrs. Flynn is always on hand."
"She's a female hyena, that woman," says Cousin Ralph, rubbin' his back between groans. "I—I wouldn't get within a mile of her again for a fortune."
Couldn't have been more'n ten minutes before the three of us—Waldo, Tidman, and me—was all grouped in the lib'ry again, just as though nothing had happened.
"My hunch was right," says I. "He wasn't a burglar. Ask Tidman."
Tidman backs me up hearty.
"Then who the deuce was he," demands Waldo, "and what was he—"
"Now, say!" says I. "You've been let out, ain't you? He's gone; no police, no court proceedin's, no scandal in the servants' quarters. Ain't that enough?"