"The Flopper's got it in for a couple of ginks that handed him one--a bull and a chauffeur on a gape-wagon," he grinned, punctuating his words with a cough. "The Flopper's got an idea the corpse-preserver's business is dull, and he's going to help 'em out with two orders and pay for the flowers himself." Doc Madison shook his head and smiled a little grimly. "Forget it, Flopper!" he said crisply. "I've something better for you to do. You fade away, disappear and lay low from this minute. I don't care what you do when you're resurrected, but from now on the three of you are dead and buried, and the police go into mourning for at least six months." "What you got for us, Doc?--something nice?"--Helena pushed Pale Face Harry and the Flopper unceremoniously out of her line of vision as she spoke. "Yes--the drinks. Cleggy's bringing them," Madison laughed--and opened the door, as the tinkle of glass and a shuffling footstep sounded without. A man, big, hulking, thick-set and slouching, with shifty, cunning little black eyes and the face of a bruiser, his nose bent over and almost flattened down on one cheek, entered the room, carrying four glasses on a tin tray. He set down the tray, and, as he lifted the glasses from it and placed them on the table, he leered around at the little group. "Gee!" he said, sucking in his breath. "De Doc, an' Helena, an' Pale Face, an' de Flopper! Gee, dis looks like de real t'ing--dis looks like biz." "It does--fifty-cents' worth--ten for yourself," said Doc Madison suavely, flipping the coin into the tray. "Now, clear out!" "Say"--Cleggy put his forefinger significantly to the side of his nose--"say, can't youse let a sport in on--" "Clear out!" Doc Madison broke in quite as suavely as before--but there was a sudden glint of steel in the gray eyes as they held the bruiser's, and Cleggy, hastily picking up the tray, scuffled from the room. Madison watched the door close, then he began to pace slowly up and down the room. "Pull the chairs up to the table so we can take things comfortably," he directed. "There ain't but two," grinned Pale Face Harry. "Oh, well, never mind," said Madison. "Slew the couch around and pull that up--Helena and I will sit on the head of it." Still pacing up and down the length of the room, his hands in his pockets, Doc Madison watched the others as they carried out his directions; and then, suddenly, as he neared the door, his hand shot out, wrenched the door open, and, quick as a panther in its spring, he was in the hall without. There was a yell, a scuffle, the rip and crash of rending bannisters, an instant's silence, then a heavy thud--and then Cleggy's voice from somewhere below in a choice and fervent flow of profanity. Doc Madison re-entered the room, closed the door, dispassionately arranged a disordered cuff, brushed a few particles of dust from his sleeves and shoulder, and, this done, started toward the table--and stopped.