It was late Sunday evening. The upper hall was dark, and Flannery stole softly down the hall in his socks and pushed open the professor's door. The room was quite dark, and Flannery stole into it and closed the door behind himself. He drew from his pocket an insect-powder gun, and fired it. It was an instrument something like a bellows, and it fired by a simple squeeze, sending a shower of powder that fell in all directions. It was a light, yellow powder, and Flannery deluged the room with it. He stole stealthily about, shooting the curtains, shooting the bed, shooting the picture of the late Mr. Timothy Muldoon, shooting the floor. He bent down and shot under the bed, and under the washstand, until a film of yellow dust lay over the whole room, and then he turned to the closet and opened that. There hung Professor Jocolino's other clothes, and Flannery jerked them from the hooks and carried them at arm's length to the bed, and shot them. As he was shooting into the pocket of a pair of striped trousers the door opened and Professor Jocolino stood on the threshold. There was no doubt in the professor's mind. He was being robbed! He drew a pistol from his pocket and fired. The bullet whizzed over the bending Flannery's head, and before the professor could fire a second time Flannery rose and turned and, with a true aim, shot the professor! Shot him full in the face with the insect powder, and before the blinded man could recover his breath or spit out the bitter dose, or wipe his eyes, Flannery had him by the collar and had jerked him to the head of the stairs. It is true; he kicked him downstairs. Not insultingly, or with bad feeling, but in a moment of emotional insanity, as the defense would say. This was an extenuating circumstance, and excuses Flannery, but the professor, being a foreigner, could not see the fine point of the distinction, and was angry. That night the professor did not sleep in Westcote, but the next afternoon he appeared at Mrs. Muldoon's, supported by Monsieur Jules, the well-known Seventh Avenue _restaurateur_, and Monsieur Renaud, who occupies an important post as _garcon_ in Monsieur Jules' establishment. "For the keek," said the professor, "I care not. I have been keek before. The keek by one gentleman, him I resent, him I revenge; the keek by the base, him I scorn! I let the keek go, Madame Muldoon. Of the keek I say not at all, but the flea! Ah, the poor flea! Excuse the weep, Madame Muldoon!" The professor wept into his handkerchief, and the two men looked seriously solemn, and patted the professor on the back. "Ah, my Alphonse, the flea! The poor leetle flea!" they cried.