She cuddled the wall and hunched her shoulders as though against an immediate blow. “Ar, you can skulk, yeh little copper’s nark, but yer in for it now. What d’I tell yeh? Eh?” He spoke in syrupy tones, terribly menacing. “What d’I tell yeh I’d do? Answer, yeh skunk, answer! Come on!” He approached her with a quick step, and snatched her wrists from her face. “Answer me. What d’I say I’d do to yeh?” “Break every bone in me body,” she whimpered. “That’s right. But I changed me mind. It’ll make too much noise round the Blue Lantern. I got something better for you, me darling. Y’know our top room?” She was silent, and he shook her like a dog. “Answer! Know our top room?” “Yes, dad.” “Where we keep old Kang Foo’s gorilla what he brought from the Straits?” “Yes, dad.” “Well, the safest place for little copper’s narks is a top room where they can’t get out. That’s where you’re going to-night. Going to be locked in the top room with old Kang’s gorilla. ’E’ll look after yeh all right. That’ll learn yeh to keep yeh tongue quiet. See? That’s what I’m going to do. Lock you in the dark room with the big monkey. And if yeh don’t know what a gorilla can do to a gel when it gets ’er alone, yeh soon will. So now!” “Oh ... dad....” She blubbered, a sick dread filling all her face. “I di’n’ do nothing. I dunno nothin’ ’bout it,” she lied. “I dunno nothing. I ain’t been blabbin’.” “Aw, yeh damn little liar!” He lifted a large hand over her. “I’ll give yeh somethin’ extra for lyin’ if yeh don’t cut it. Now then, up yeh go and sleep with little ’Rilla. No nonsense.” What happened then was not pleasant to see. She struggled. She screamed hoarse screams which made scarce any sound. She kicked and bit. Her dramatic hair tumbled in a torrent. And her big father flung two arms about her, mishandled her, and dragged her with rattling cries up the steep stair. When they reached the top landing, to which she had never before ascended, and the loft of a room which, she had heard, Kang Foo rented as a stable for his gorilla, all fight was gone from her. A limp, moaning bundle was flung into the thickly dark room. She heard the rattle of a chain as though the beast had been unloosed, and then the door slammed and clicked, and she was alone with the huge, hairy horror. In a sudden access of despairing strength she rushed to the window, barred inside and out, and hammered with soft fists and screamed: “Help! Help! Dad’s locked me up with a monkey!” It was about half-an-hour later that one came to Batty Bertello, who was taking a glass to the memory of the deceased dad and also to buck himself up a bit, and told him that he had passed the Blue Lantern and had heard a girl’s voice screaming from a top window something about being shut up with a monkey. And Batty, who suddenly realised that Hunk Bottles had heard of those slips of paper, dropped his glass and, with love-madness in his face, dashed for the door, crying: