“Say, Ruby was right in this, after all,” he suddenly proclaimed. “_I_ was the guy who got off his trolley. Yuh—yuh looked so good to me I got my numbers mixed. I got to dreamin’ things. But twenty-five thousand bucks in cold cash ain’t no dream. And d’ yuh know what I’m goin’ to do, and do right now? I’m goin’ up to that Uhlan guy and get that twenty-five thousand back. Just so ’s yuh can see I’m a little more on the level than yuh’ve been imaginin’. I’m goin’ to make that studio-lizard come across wit’ that dough—_with_ that dough,” he amended, remembering, in his excitement, certain old-time admonitions as to the utterance of his mother-tongue. “But I don’t want you to do that!” cried Teddie, harboring a strangely muddled-up and reluctant admiration for the deluded young fire-eater with the Saint Anthony light in his blazing blue eyes. “Of course yuh don’t, for the thing’s got yuh buffaloed the same as _yuh_ got me buffaloed,” proclaimed the knight of the ring. “And the whole lay-out’s wrong. The only thing that got hurt about that guy was his dignity. I knew what I was doin’ all the time. I held back on the sleep-punch, and played wit’ him. I didn’t give him anything that a pound of beefsteak wouldn’t put right inside o’ twenty-four hours—and he knows it as well as I do. But now he’s pulled this blackmail stuff I’m goin’ to put him wise to how I was toyin’ wit’ him. I’m goin’ to let him see that if he ever so much as opens his trap about this business he’s goin’ to have it decorated wit’ a double set o’ plates when I get through wit’ him—when I get through _with_ him. And the next time he’ll holler so loud for help they’ll be fannin’ him wit’ a hearse-plume before he’s finished!” Teddie tried to stop him as he turned away. “Noth-thing doin’!” he proclaimed with his movie-hero side-movement of the hand. “I’m Irish, I am, and me Irish is up. Yuh’re goin’ to see this goob bitin’ on a mouth-gag or yuh’re goin’ to see crape swingin’ over his door-mat!” “It’s no use,” Teddie still tried to tell him. “It’s too late. It will only make things much worse than they already are!” But Gunboat Dorgan hadn’t been crowned with that soubriquet of belligerency without fit and proper reason. “I’m wise to this lay-out now,” he announced from the doorway, “and I’m goin’ to have a hand in windin’ it up. It’s no use tryin’ to flag me off. And I ain’t sayin’ yuh’re a quitter, for yuh’re only a girl. But yuh don’t see me layin’ down in the shafts wit’ a thing like this under me nose. I’m goin’ through wit’ this, and nobody’s goin’ to stop me. And maybe this’ll square up a little for—for them lamps o’ yours I put on the blink!” CHAPTER TWELVE