"They've most got the range, Swifty," says I. "Two feet to the left and you'd been a bull's-eye. What you got your mouth open so wide for? Goin' to try to catch the next one in your teeth?" Swifty didn't have time to uncork any repartee before someone struck the landing outside like they'd come down a flight of foldin' steps feet first, and a little, sharp-nosed woman, with purple flowers in her hat, bobs in and squints once at each of us. Say, I don't want to be looked at often like that! It felt like bein' sampled with a cheese tester. "Did Montgomery Smith just come in here?" says she. "Did he? Don't lie, now! Where is he?" and the way she jerked them little black eyes around was enough to tear holes in the matting. "Lady--" says I. "Don't lady me, Mr. Fresh," says she, throwin' the gimlets my way. "And tell that broken-nosed child stealer over there to take that monkey grin off'm his face or I'll scratch his eyes out." "Hully chee!" yells Swifty, throwin' a back somersault through the gym. door and snappin' the lock on his side. "Anything more, miss?" says I. "We're here to please." "Humph!" says she. "It'd take somethin' better than you to please me." "Glad I was born lucky," thinks I, but I thought it under my breath. "Is my Monty hiding in that room?" says she, jabbin' a finger at the gym. "Cross my heart, he ain't," says I. "I don't believe you could think quick enough to lie," says she, and with that she flips out about as fast as she came in. I didn't stir until I hears her hit the lower hall. Then I bolts the door, goes and calls Swifty down off the top of the swingin' rope, and we comes to a parade rest alongside the couch. "Monty, dear Monty," says I, "the cyclone's passed out to sea. Come out and give up your rain check." He backs out feet first, climbs up on the couch, and drops his chin into his hands for a minute, while he gets over the worst of the shock. Say, at first sight he wa'n't a man you'd think any woman would lose her breath tryin' to catch, less'n she was his landlady, and that was what I figures out that this female peace disturber was. Monty might have been a winner once, but it was a long spell back. Just then he was some out of repair. He had a head big enough for a college professor, and a crop of hair like an herb doctor, but his eyes were puffy underneath, and you could see by the _cafe au lait_ tint to his face that his liver'd been on a long strike. He was fairly thick through the middle, but his legs didn't match the rest of him. They were too thin and too short. "If I'd known you was comin', I'd had the scrub lady dust under there," says I; "but it won't need it now for a couple of weeks."