"I mean it," pronounced Billy. "He needs a li'l straight talk, and he's going to get it prompt and soon. Luckily he likes fresh air."
"Fresh air?" puzzled Guerilla.
"Leaves his window partly open at night," explained Billy. "Which being so, I'll be out of luck if I can't creep in and give him the surprise of his life."
"He may not have gone to sleep yet. I'll find out."
Before Billy could stay him, Guerilla was gone. Fifteen minutes later he returned.
"He's abed, snoring like a circular saw working on a knotty log," Guerilla informed him. "But there's a light in the kitchen."
"That means his housekeeper's up—probably settin' bread for to-morrow. Ain't she quite a friend of yours, Guerilla?"
The darkness veiled Guerilla's blush. "I see her now and then."
"Then go see her now," urged Billy. "It's kind of late for an evening call, but you can tell her some kind of a lie. If she likes you, she'll believe it. You go see her and keep her in the kitchen for the next thirty minutes. Then meet me here."
The district attorney, lying on the broad of his back in bed, suddenly snored his way into a nightmare. He dreamed that he was in the woods, that he had lain down upon an inviting bank and that a ninety-foot pine had fallen upon his chest, to the prejudice of his breathing. He squirmed and wriggled but the tree was immovable. It was slowly crushing the walls of his chest. The district attorney gasped—awoke, and discovered to his horror that his bad dream was partly true. There was something roosting on his chest. If not a tree, it was at least confoundedly heavy. Furthermore, adding as it were to the interest of the occasion, a something chilly and hard was rooting into the angle of his chin and neck.