Abruptly she dropped her weapon and sat up yet straighter in her
huddled bed-clothing, mouth and eyes widening with astonishment.
"Well!" she said quite simply--"I'll be damned if it ain't a cop!"
P. Sybarite immediately took occasion to lower his hands to a more
comfortable position.
Fright inspired his latent histrionic genius; momentarily he became
almost a good actor.
"Thank God!" he exclaimed fervently. "You're the one woman in a
thousand who knows enough to look before she shoots! _Phwew!_"
[Illustration: "You're the one woman in a thousand who knows enough to
look before she shoots!"]
Quite naturally he drew a braided blue cuff across a beaded forehead.
"That's all very well," the woman took him up sharply--"but be careful
I don't shoot after looking. Cop or no cop, you--what the devil do you
want in my bedroom at this hour of the night?"
"Madam," P. Sybarite expostulated, aggrieved yet with an air of the
utmost candour--"my duty, of course!"
"Duty!" she echoed. "What do you think you mean by that?"
"Perhaps," he countered blandly, "you're not aware a burglar has
passed through this room?"
"A burglar? What rot!"
"Pardon me, madam," P. Sybarite lied nonchalantly, "but five minutes
ago I was called in by the people in Two-thirty-three Forty-fifth
Street, to nab a burglar who'd broken in there. They thought they had
him locked up safe enough in one of the rooms, but when they came to
open the door and let _me_ at him--the bird had flown! He'd taken a
long chance--swung himself from the window-ledge to a fire-escape five
feet away--don't ask _me_ how he did it! I got to the window just in
time to see him go over the back fence.
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