"
P. Sybarite's cigar dropped unheeded from his lips.
"_What!_" he cried.
The detective started.
"Wasn't that the numba of the lady's cab--two-thirty?"
"Good God!" ejaculated P. Sybarite, jumping up.
"What's hit you?"
"I'm going!" the little man announced fiercely.
"Your time allowance ain't expired by several minutes--"
"To hell with my time allowance! Try to keep me, if you like!"
P. Sybarite strode excitedly to the door and jerked it open. The
detective followed him, puffing philosophically.
There was no one in sight in the hall.
"Looks like you got a fine show for a clean getaway," he observed
cheerfully between his teeth. "Your friend's beaten it, the boss has
ducked the responsibility, and you got _me_ scared to death.
Besides--damn 'f I'm going to be the goat that saddles this hash-hut
with a suit for damages."
His concluding words were addressed to the horizontal folds of the
inverness that streamed from the shoulders of P. Sybarite as he bolted
unhindered through the Fifth Avenue doorway.
XIX
NEMESIS
"Dolt!... Blockhead!... Imbecile!... Idiot!... Numskull!... Ass!...
Simpleton!... Loon!..."
The chill air of early morning wiped the blistering epithets from his
lips as he fled like a madman down Fifth Avenue, at every stride
wringing from the depths of an embittered bosom new and more virulent
terms of vituperation with which to characterize his infatuated
stupidity--and finding one and all far too mild.
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