And just as I was wondering if this Bloomingdale seance was to go on all day, Sir Peter gives out like a busted mainspring, slumps all over the floor, and lays as limp as if his jaw had connected with a pile-driver. For a minute or so I was scared clear down to my toe-nails; but after I'd sluiced him with ice-water and worked over him a little, he came back to the boards. He was groggy, and I reckon things was loopin' the loops when he looked at 'em; but his blood pump was doing business again, and I knew he'd feel better pretty soon. I helped him up on the bucket, that being handiest, and threw a three-finger slug of rye into him, and then he began to take an inventory of things in general, kind of slow and dignified. He looks at the broken glass on the car carpet, at the chairs turned bottom up, at me in my hard-work costume, and at his own rig. "Really, you know, really--I--I don't quite understand," he says. "Where--what--" "Oh, you're ahead," says I. "I wouldn't swear to the score; but it's your odds." This didn't seem to satisfy him, though. He kept on lookin' around, as though he'd lost something. I guessed he was hunting for that blasted cane. "See here," says I. "You get the decision, and there ain't goin' to be any encore. I've retired. I've had enough of that game to last me until I'm as old as you are, which won't be for two or three seasons on. If you're dead anxious for more, you wait until Mr. Gordon comes back and challenge him. He's a sport." But Sir Peter seemed to be clear off the alley. "My good man," says he, "I--I don't follow you at all. Will you please tell me where I am?" Now say, how was I to know where he thought he was? What was the name of that place--Briskett Arms? I didn't want to chance it. "This is the same old stand," says I, "right where you started an hour ago." "But," says he--"but Lord Winchester?" "He's due on the next trolley," says I. "Had to stop off at the gun-factory, you know." Ever try to tear off a lot of extemporaneous lies, twenty to the minute? It's no pipe. Worse than being on the stand at an insurance third degree. I couldn't even refuse to answer on advice of counsel, and in no time at all he had me twisted up into a bow-knot. "Young man," says he, "I think you're prevaricating." "I'm doin' me best," says I; "but let's cut that out. P'raps you'd feel better if you wore the bucket awhile." "Bucket?" says he. And I'll be put on the buzzer if he didn't throw the bluff that he'd never had the thing on his head. "Oh, well," says I, "you've got a right to lie some if you want to. It's your turn, anyway. But let me swab you off a little." He didn't kick on that, and I was gettin' busy with warm water and towels when the door opens, and in drifts Mr. Gordon with three well-fed gents behind him. "Great cats!" says he, throwin' up both hands. "Shorty, what in blazes has happened?" "Nothin' much," says I. "We've been playin' a little shinny."