The subsequent commotions, as well as the preceding ones, were indistinctly audible to the mystified person who waited upon the sidewalk outside the place. Finding that his eyes revealed nothing of the interior, he had placed his ear against the window, and the muffled reports, mistaken for firecrackers by Daisy and Elsie, were similarly interpreted by Laurence; but he supposed Daisy and Elsie to have a direct connection with the sounds. A thought of the Fourth of July entered his mind, as it had Daisy’s, but it solved nothing for him: the Fourth was long past; this was not the sort of store that promised firecrackers; and even if Daisy and Elsie had taken firecrackers with them, how had it happened that they were allowed to explode them indoors? As for an “ottomatick” or a “revolaver,” he knew that neither maiden would touch such a thing, for he had heard them express their aversion to the antics of Robert Eliot, on an occasion when Master Eliot had surreptitiously borrowed his father’s “good ole six-shooter” to disport himself with in the Threamers’ garage. Nothing could have been more evident than that Daisy and Elsie had definite affairs to transact in this café; the air with which they entered it was a conclusive demonstration of that. But the firecrackers made guessing at the nature of those affairs even more hopeless than when the pair had visited the barber-shop and the harness-shop. Then, as a closer report sounded, Laurence jumped. “_Giant_ firecracker!” he exclaimed huskily, and his eyes still widened; for now vague noises of tumult and altercation could be heard. “Well, my go-o-od-_nuss_!” he said. Two pedestrians halted near him. “Say, listen,” one of them said. “What’s goin’ on in there?” “Golly!” the other exclaimed, adding: “I happen to know it’s a blind tiger.” Laurence’s jaw dropped, and he stared at the man incredulously. “Wha-wha’d you say?” “Listen,” the man returned. “How long’s all this been goin’ on in there?” “Just since _they_ went in there. It was just a little while ago. Wha’d you say about——” But he was interrupted. Several other passers-by had paused, and they began to make interested inquiries of the first two. “What’s the trouble in there? What’s going on here? What’s all the shooting? What’s——” “There’s _something_ pretty queer goin’ on,” said the man who had spoken to Laurence; and he added: “It’s a blind tiger.” “Yes, _I_ know that,” another said. “I was in there once, and I know from my own eyes it’s a blind tiger.” Laurence began to be disconcerted.