"I'm sorry," said I behind him. "How did he do it?"
He whirled, and I could see that his laughing boyish face had become suddenly grim and stern, and that his eyes were shot with blood.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" he growled disparagingly. "Well, that's how he did it."
He held out his foot. Across the instep and at the base of the toes ran two rows of tiny round punctures from which the blood was oozing. I looked very inquiring.
"He corked me!" Jimmy Powers explained. "Jammed his spikes into me! Stepped on my foot and tripped me, the——" Jimmy Powers certainly could swear.
"Why didn't you make a kick?" I cried.
"That ain't how I do it," he muttered, pulling on his heavy woollen sock.
"But no," I insisted, my indignation mounting. "It's an outrage! That crowd was with you. All you had to do was to say something——"
He cut me short. "And give myself away as a damn fool—sure Mike. I ought to know Dickey Darrell by this time, and I ought to be big enough to take care of myself." He stamped his foot into his driver's shoe and took me by the arm, his good humour apparently restored. "No, don't you lose any hair, bub; I'll get even with Roaring Dick."
That night, having by the advice of the proprietor moved my bureau and trunk against the bedroom door, I lay wide awake listening to the taking of the town apart. At each especially vicious crash I wondered if that might be Jimmy Powers getting even with Roaring Dick.