"But it's just the thing!" insisted Willie. "Besides, you can charge me for it in the cash account. Give it here!" Conscience being thus satisfied the two eagerly placed the ink bottle in the proper receptacle, which Willie had fashioned out of a stogy box, twisted back the bow and aimed the apparatus at the slanting scuttle, which projected from a sort of penthouse upon the roof of the tenement house across the street. "Now!" he exclaimed ecstatically. "Stand from under, Scraggs!" He pressed a lever. There was a whang, a whistle--and the ink bottle hurtled in a beautiful parabola over Greenwich Street. "Gee! look at her go!" cried Willie in triumph. "Straight's a string." At exactly that instant--and just as the bottle was about to descend upon the penthouse--the scuttle opened and there was thrust forth a huge yellow face with enormous sooty lips wreathed in an unmistakable smile. On the long undulating neck the head resembled one of the grotesque manikins carried in circus parades. Eset el Gazzar in a search for air had discovered that the attic scuttle was slightly ajar. "Gosh! A camel!" gasped Willie. "Lord of love!" ejaculated Scraggs. "It sure is a camel!" There was a faint crash and a tinkle of glass as the bottle of red ink struck the penthouse roof just over the beast's head and deluged it with its vermilion contents. Eset reared, shook her neck, gave a defiant grunt and swiftly withdrew her head into the attic. Sophie Hassoun, the wife of Kasheed, seeing the violent change in Eset's complexion, wrung her hands. "What hast thou done, O daughter of devils? Thou art bleeding! Thou hast cut thyself! Alack, mayhap thou wilt die, and then we shall be ruined! Improvident! Careless one! Cursed be thy folly! Hast thou no regard? And I dare not send for Doctor Koury, the veterinary, for then thy presence would be discovered and the gendarmes would come and take thee away. Would that we had left thee at Coney Island! O, great-granddaughter of Al Adha--sacred camel of the Prophet--why hast thou done this? Why hast thou brought misery upon us? _Awar! Awar!_" She cast herself upon the improvised divan in the corner, while Eset, blinking, licked her big yellow hind hump, and tumbled forward upon her knees preparatory to sitting down herself. "A camel!" repeated Willie, round-eyed. He counted the roofs dividing the penthouse from where Morris Street bisected the block. "Whoop!" he cried and dashed out of the office. In less than four minutes Patrolman Dennis Patrick Murphy, who was standing on post on Washington Street in front of Nasheen Zereik's Embroidery Bazaar talking to Sardi Babu, saw a red-headed, pug-nosed urchin come flying round the corner. "One--two--three--four--five. That's the house!" cried Willie Toothaker. "That's it!" "What yer talkin' 'bout?" drawled Murphy. "There's a camel in there!" shouted Willie, dancing up and down. "Camel--yer aunt!" sneered the cop. "They couldn't get no camel in there!"