Marc glanced briefly over his shoulder and shuddered. Manny Groute was the sort of fellow no one would ever suspect of having had a mother. He seemed to have been assembled, rather than born. In front of him, the table looked like a delicate foot rest. "What does he want with my brief case?" Marc asked uneasily. "Search me," Ruby said easily. "The ransom I suppose." "You ask him to search you just once more," Toffee broke in menacingly, "and I'll break your bottle of peroxide." "That's enough!" bawled Ruby. "That's the shot that got me! Stand up, and I'll tear that red hair out by the roots! And don't think I can't do it, either. I've got Irish blood in my veins!" "And if you'd like it splashed all over the floor, where you can show it off better," Toffee flared, "just start something!" Ruby, an affable creature by nature, and always open to suggestions of all kinds, took Toffee at her word, and lifted her none too daintily from her chair. "Stop that!" yelled Marc, and rushing to the struggling women, took a bare shoulder in each hand. No sooner did he have them parted, than, as if by magic, a huge, meaty hand fell on Marc's shoulder and nearly weighted him to the floor. "Oh, murder!" he murmured as he looked up into the terrifying face of Manny Groute, which, at the moment, bore an expression that did little toward inspiring open-hearted confidence and trust. "You named it right, bud," Manny rumbled ominously. "I don't like guys pawin' my girl friend." * * * * * In the following moments, Ruby and Manny looked like rather grotesque members of a water ballet, as, in perfect unison, they held their victims at bay, and drew back their fists. To anyone else, in Toffee's very potent position, Ruby's doubled fist would have been an item of consuming interest, but to Toffee, it was a forgotten detail, as her attention fell on the acrobats that were the current floor show attraction. It was the first time she had ever seen a human pyramid being formed, and that so many well developed masculine bodies should appear all in one clump, seemed to her, the most wonderful spectacle in the whole world. If Toffee was oblivious of her coming fate, however, Marc was not. Indeed, as he glimpsed Manny's mammoth hand in the impressive process of doubling itself, he found himself regretting his oversight in not reserving a room while at the hospital that morning. He had a strong hunch that he would shortly have need of it. It was then that the unexpected happened. Swiftly, a claw-like hand jutted from beneath the next table and grabbed Manny's thick ankle. In another second, Marc felt the racketeer falling against him, and the two of them were headed for the floor like a couple of felled pines. Instantly, for Marc, everything went black.