Back to the Woods: The Story of a Fall from GraceHobart, George V. (George Vere)
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Back to the Woods: The Story of a Fall from Grace
Hobart, George V. (George Vere)
Humorous stories; United States -- Social life and customs -- Fiction
"I have every reason to believe that we have made a mistake," I
said to Harmony in a hoarse whisper. "From an envelope dropped by
this party in my house I am lead to believe that he's a respectable
gentleman who entered my premises quite by mistake."
The chin whiskers owned and engineered by Diggs bobbed up and down
as he chewed a reflective cud, but he couldn't see the matter in my
light at all.
I had used all kinds of arguments and was just about to give up in
despair when a voice in the doorway caused us both to turn.
There stood Bunch Jefferson, the real fellow, looking as fresh as a
daisy.
"What's the trouble, John?" he asked, smiling benignly on Diggs.
While I was talking to the representative of the law, Mr. Slick saw
his opportunity and grabbed it by the hind leg. He had quietly
reached the door, and once outside the sledding was excellent.
Bunch had his business suit on under the burglar make-up. It
didn't take him two minutes to work the shine darbies over his
hands. He then peeled off the ulster and the tuppeny trousers,
and throwing these and the Svengalis over the fence, he was home
again from the Bad Lands.
The transformation scene was made complete by the fact that Bunch
was now wearing my hat.
In answer to Bunch's question, the redoubtable Diggs smiled
indulgently and said with pride-choked tones, "A maleyfactor, sir,
caught in the meshes of the law and hauled before this here trybune
of Justice by these hands!"
The eagle eye of Diggs was now triumphantly sighted along the arm
and over the bony hand to where the criminal was supposed to be,
but when the gaze finally rested on an empty bench the expression
of pained surprise on the old man-hunter's map was calculated to
make a hen cackle.
Diggs rushed over to the bench, turned it upside down, looked
behind the chairs, and then, emitting a roar that rattled the
rafters, he hustled back to see if by any chance the prisoner had
locked himself up in a cell.
Bunch gave the old geezer the minnehaha and yelled, "Say! you with
the me-ya-ya's on the chin! Did somebody give you the hot-foot and
make a quick exit?"
Diggs was now in full eruption and heavy showers of Reub lava rose
from his vocal organs and fell all over the place, while he
thrashed around the calaboose in a frenzy of excitement.
"Maybe you're sending out a general alarm about that human meteor
that passed me on the pike a few minutes ago?" Bunch suggested.
Diggs turned and eyed him in open-mouthed silence.
"A mutt with a pink ulster and one of those pancakes on his head
like the drivers of the gasoline carts wear," Bunch suggested.
"It's him! it's the maleyfactor!" exclaimed Harmony, tightening his
grip on the night stick; "which way did the derned cuss go?"
Bunch pointed due south-east, and with a howl of rage Diggs sprang
forward and bounced down the pike like a hungry kangaroo on its way
to a lunch counter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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