Before Harold quite knew what was happening to him, he was prancing down the long hall with my bony fingers grasping his collar. Coming to the door opening into the outer vestibule, I drew back my foot for a final aid to locomotion. Acutely recalling the fact that slippers are not designed for kicking purposes, I raised my foot, removed the slipper and laid it upon a taut section of his trousers with all of the melancholy force that I usually exert in slicing my drive off the tee. I shall never forget the exquisite spasm of pleasure his plaintive "Ouch!" gave me. Then Harold passed swiftly out of my life. Mr. Rocksworth, reinforced by four reluctant mercenaries in the shape of porters, was advancing upon me. Somehow I had a vague, but unerring instinct that some one had fainted, but I didn't stop to inquire. Without much ado, I wrested the cane from him and sent it scuttling after Harold. "Now, get out!" I roared. "You shall pay for this!" he sputtered, quite black in the face. "Grab him, you infernal cowards!" But the four porters slunk away, and Mr. Rocksworth faced me alone. Rudolph and Max, thoroughly fed and _most_ prodigious, were bearing down upon us, accounting for the flight of the mercenaries. "Get out!" I repeated. "I am the owner of this place, Mr. Rocksworth, and I am mad through and through. Skip!" "I'll have the law--" "Law be hanged!" "If it costs me a million, I'll get--" "It _will_ cost you a million if you don't get!" I advised him, seeing that he paused for want of breath. I left him standing there, but had the presence of mind to wave my huge henchmen away. Mr. Riley-Werkheimer approached, but very pacifically. He was paler than he will ever be again in his life, I fear. "This is most distressing, most distressing, Mr.-- Mr.-- ahem! I've never been so outraged in my life. I--but, wait!" He had caught the snap in my atavistic eye. "I am not seeking trouble. We will go, sir. I--I--I think my wife has quite recovered. Are--are you all right, my dear?" I stood aside and let them file past me. Mrs. Riley-Werkheimer moved very nimbly for one who had just been revived by smelling-salts. As her husband went by, he half halted in front of me. A curious glitter leaped into his fishy eyes. "I'd give a thousand dollars to be free to do what you did to that insufferable puppy, Mr.--Mr.--ahem. A cool thousand, damn him!" I had my coffee upstairs, far removed from the onions. A racking headache set in. Never again will I go without my coffee so long. It always gives me a headache. CHAPTER III I CONVERSE WITH A MYSTERY