Chapter 22

On the morning after the fight Mallow knocked at Gray's door, then in answer to an indistinct and irritable command to be gone, he made himself known.

"It's me, Governor. And I've got Exhibit A."

"Really?" came the startled query. There was a stir from within, the lock snapped and the door opened.

"I've got a little friend here that I want you to--" Mallow paused inside the threshold, his mouth fell open, he stared in frank amazement. "Sweet spirits of niter!" he gasped. "What happened to you?"

"I was playing tag in the hall with some other old men, and one of them struck me."

"My God, you're a sight!" Mallow remained petrified. "I never saw a worse mess."

"Come in and close the door. I am vain, therefore I have a certain shyness about exposing my beauty to the curious gaze. Pardon me if I seat myself first; I find it more comfortable to sit than to stand, to recline than to sit." Stiffly the speaker let himself into an upholstered divan and fitted the cushions to his aches and his pains, his bruises and his abrasions. He sighed miserably. His features were discolored, shapeless; his lips were cut; strips of adhesive tape held the edges of a wound together; his left hand was tightly bandaged and the room reeked with the odor of liniment.

"You've been hit with a safe, or something," Mallow declared. "Evidences of some blunt instrument, as the newspapers say; maybe a pair of chain tongs."

"Blunt and heavy, yes. Buddy Briskow and I had an argument--"

"That big bum? Did he lay it on you like that? Say, he's got the makings of a champ!"

"Pride impels me to state that he got the worst of it. He is scarcely presentable, while I--"

"Your side won?"

"It did. Now, where is the boy?"

"He's outside." Without shifting his astonished gaze, Mallow raised his voice and cried, "Hey, Bennie!" The door opened, a trim, diminutive figure entered. "Bennie, mit my friend Colonel Gray."

The youngster, a boy of indeterminate age, advanced and shook hands. There was no mistaking him; he was Margie Fulton's son in size, in coloring, in features. "I told Bennie you could use a bright kid about his age. And he's bright."

It required no clever analysis of the lad to convince Gray that he was indeed bright, as bright--and as hard--as a silver dollar. He had a likable face, or it would have been likable had it been in repose. It was twitching now, and Gray said, with a smile, "Go ahead and laugh, son."

The urchin's lips parted in a wide grin, and he spoke for the first time. "Did the Germans do that?" The effect of his voice was startling, for it was deep and husky; it was the older man's