"You let me go," he whispered, clinging to a chair. "If you don't, my master will set the police on to you see if he don't." "The police!" cried Job. "What do I care for them! They can't do anything to me; she'll keep them off--she will. I can shew up her husband it she don't. Drink, drink, or I'll kick you!" Partly to avert the carrying-out of this threat, and partly because he was extremely dry with his race across country, Jerry accepted the offer, and as the ardent spirits went down his throat, he felt his courage revive. "I'm Jerry Hutt," he exclaimed, "and I work for Mr. Roper. I want the bill--the bill!" He made a grab at the gypsy. "It will lay him by the heels," he hissed. "Lay who by the heels, hang you?" cried Job, pushing him back. "Why, Marshall--I won't call him 'Mister' Marshall--who killed my poor dear Miss Elsa." Job, half stupid with drink, had yet the sense to gather the meaning of the words. "Blest if I won't know of the red pocket-book, too," he muttered. And even as he spoke, Jerry caught the words, and repeated them. "The red pocket-book," he shouted. "Do you know where it is? The bill is in it, and I'll buy it off you; oh, yes, I will. Fifty pounds." Job banged his fist so heavily on the table that the lamp tottered. "I wish I had it now!" he cried. "Fifty pounds-by gum!" "Have you the bill there?" asked Jerry, taking another drink. "No; I haven't anything," said Job. "She got it out of me." "Got what out of you?" "Why, the red pocket-book--but the bill wasn't in it," he added. For a moment Jerry stared at the man, then dropped the bottle with a crash on the floor; it broke, and the liquor forming a pool, added its fumes to the smell of the petroleum. "You had that red book!" stuttered Jerry, trying hard to clear his brain. "And it was taken from me! You live here--you were--you, oh, oh!" He sprang from his seat with a roar. "You took it from me!" "Well," said Job, with a growl, "was you the cove as I fought on that night, and knocked about so?" "You robber--you thief!" cried Jerry, crouching for a spring. "Give me back my property--the book, the bill!" and he flung himself on the gypsy, who gave a cry of rage. "I'll crush you like a fly, as I did before!" Job said, and grappled with his visitor. But Job was not the man he had been twelve years before; he could not hold his own as he had once done. Shouting and cursing, the two men swayed round the apartment. Finally, they crashed against the table, and upset the lamp it fell and burst on the floor. Immediately the woodwork, soaked as it was in petroleum, broke into flame, and in almost less time than it takes to tell, the whole room was in a blaze. With a yell of terror, Jerry tried to shake himself free, and leap through the girdle of fire but Job held him fast.