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108 WILD MARGARET,
‘Gently,’ said his tormentor. “One question at a time,
and though you don’t put them politely, [ll give you a
true answer. My name is Ambrose—Austin Ambrose.
Say it over to yourself once or twice, and you won’t for-.
get it. And what do I want? Well, I want a strong,
active young ruffian like you, aman who haspluck enough
to remember an injury and burns to pay it back. And
that’s your case again, isn’t it?” | -
He lit his cigarette, and blew a ring in the air, and
watched it until it had faded away.
— * And now I'll explain why you area fool. You are a
fool because you lay in’ wait with a big stick to bang
your enemy about the head. No one but a fool would do
that, my dear Pyke; firstly, because he might not hurt
his enemy——” __
Jem Pyke scowled fearfully. , 7
‘* Well, yes, you might hurt him, but—and that brings
me tomy secondly—you couldn’t.do it without its being
traced to you: There might be a struggle, there would be
blood and other unpleasant traces, and, all.Lombard Street
to.a china orange, the police would have you by the heels
before an hour was passed, and then——!’’ The speaker
wound up the sentence by a playful gesture indicative of
strangulation. -
‘Pyke’s face was a study. At first, from hate and the
desire to crush his tormentor it displayed the emotion 0
murder, and then a reluctant admiration; and af last he
stood, the stick hanging loosely in his hand, his small, evil
eyes fixed with a fascinated stare on his companion’s face.
‘‘Tam right, you see,” said Austin’ Ambrose. ‘Now,
if IT owed a mana grudge—I don’t, Iam happy to say, for
I have not an enemy in the world, my dear Pyke—but if I
owed a man a grudge, I shouldn’t set to work in your
clumsy fashion. No; I shouldn’t dog him and knock him
about the head just outside my own door, because I should
feel assured that the police would track me down.. No;
I should wait until he had got some distance off—to Lon-
don, for instance, or another part of the country—and
then,some dull evening, I should bring him down with
a gun ora pistol from a safe distance, and then quietly ”
—he blew a cloud of smoke into the air and pointed to
it—‘‘ vanish!’’
The man stood and listened with every sense on the
alert, absorbed and rapt.
Then he drew a long breath. —
“That's what you'd do, guv‘nor, is it??? he said at last,
- hoarsely.
Austin Ambrose nodded.
Yes, And if Thad a friend who could point ‘out to