It is to be supposed that a dining room brawl, at best, is bound to be an untidy business. The one that followed was hardly an exception. The employees of the diner, all accomplished hash slingers by profession, exerted every effort to prove their professional standing in a horribly literal way. What the good people lacked in cool headed aim, they made up for in sustained volume. The members of the Pillsworth party, not too ambitious, anyway, to be the victors in this war on foodstuffs, were quickly beaten into a disordered retreat. Running swiftly down the sidewalk toward the waiting taxi, their last glimpse of the enemy only caused them to redouble their efforts to be elsewhere. The counter boy and the waitresses, joined by a managerial reinforcement who had miraculously arrived on the scene in the midst of hostilities, were lined up on the sidewalk like a bespattered operatic chorus. In unison, and with gusto, they were calling for the law and horrible revenge. One of the waitresses, distinguished from the others by a spasmodic addition to quivering disturbances about the upper torso, was loudly describing the abysmal blackness of Toffee's future should she ever be permitted to arrange it. After the skirmish in the diner, there followed a long ride in the country which might have been restful except for the persistent singing of the driver, whose favorite selection continued exasperatingly to be "Mexicali Rose." Through it all, Marc tried to assemble his thoughts, a task rather like trying to assemble a house of cards in a derailed streetcar. However, he did come to several definite conclusions. Out of the shambles that was now his life, there were two things that surely had to be salvaged. Those were his love for his wife and hers for him. Having those two ingredients with which to work he might be able to rebuild from the beginning again, providing, of course, that he did not become a permanent resident of the state penitentiary because of George's misbegotten helpfulness. Another conclusion concerned Julie's debut as a Broadway star and her certain failure as same. If Julie was to go down in humiliation, he would be there to help cushion the fall, no matter what the consequences might turn out to be. Thus, Marc's conclusions determining their course, darkness found the taxi and its odd crew heading warily back toward the city and the Hamilton Theatre. They traveled quietly through side streets and alleys, displaying a noticeable reticence in the vicinity of bright lights and police cars. Besmirched both in character and person, the fugitives ordered their movements in concurrence with their recently lowered social status.