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      CHAPTER VII

      GETTING ACQUAINTED

       Table of Contents

      A CYCLONE, entering a room, is apt to alter the position of things. This cyclone shifted a foot-stool, a small chair, a rug, and Spike. The chair, struck by a massive boot, whirled against the wall. The foot-stool rolled away. The rug crumpled up and slid. Spike, with a yell, leaped to his feet, slipped again, fell, and finally compromised on an all-fours position, in which attitude he remained, blinking.

      While these stirring acts were in progress, there was the sound of a door opening upstairs, followed by a scuttering of feet and an appalling increase in the canine contribution to the current noises. The duet had now taken on quite a Wagnerian effect.

      There raced into the room first a white bull-terrier, he of the soprano voice, and—a bad second—his fellow artiste, the baritone, a massive bull-dog, bearing a striking resemblance to the big man with the big lower jaw whose entrance had started the cyclone.

      And, then, in theatrical parlance, the entire company "held the picture." Up-stage, with his hand ​still on the door, stood the man with the jaw; down-stage, Jimmy; center, Spike and the bull-dog, their noses a couple of inches apart, inspected each other with mutual disfavor. On the extreme O. P. side, the bull-terrier, who had fallen foul of a wicker-work table, was crouching with extended tongue and rolling eyes, waiting for the next move.

      The householder looked at Jimmy. Jimmy looked at the householder. Spike and the bull-dog looked at each other. The bull-terrier distributed his gaze impartially around the company.

      "A typical scene of quiet American home-life," murmured Jimmy.

      The householder glowered.

      "Hands up, you devils!" he roared, pointing a mammoth revolver.

      The two marauders humored his whim.

      "Let me explain," said Jimmy pacifically, shuffling warily around in order to face the bull-terrier, who was now strolling in his direction with an ill-assumed carelessness.

      "Keep still, you blackguard!" Jimmy kept still. The bull-terrier, with the same abstracted air, was beginning a casual inspection of his right trouser-leg.

      Relations between Spike and the bull-dog, meanwhile, had become more strained. The sudden flinging up of the former's arms had had the worst effects on the animal's nerves. Spike, the croucher on all-fours, he might have tolerated; but Spike, the ​semaphore, inspired him with thoughts of battle. He was growling in a moody, reflective manner. His eye was full of purpose.

      It was probably this that caused Spike to look at the householder. Till then, he had been too busy to shift his gaze, but now the bull-dog's eye had become so unpleasing that he cast a pathetic glance up at the man by the door.

      "Gee!" he cried. "It's de boss. Say, boss, call off de dawg; It's sure goin' to nip de hull head off'n me."

      The other lowered the revolver in surprise.

      "So, it's you, you limb of Satan!" he remarked. "I thought I had seen that damned red head of yours before. What are you doing in my house?"

      Spike uttered a howl in which indignation and self-pity were nicely blended.

      "I'll lay for that Swede!" he cried. "I'll soak it to him good! Boss, I've had a raw deal. On de level, I has. Dey's a feller I know, a fat Swede—Ole Larsen his monaker is—an' dis feller an' me started in scrapping last week, an' I puts it all over him, so he had it in for me. But he comes up to me, like as if he's meanin' to be good, an' he says he's got a soft proposition fer me if I'll give him half. So, I says all right, where is it? An' he gives me de number of dis house, an' says dis is where a widder-lady lives all alone, an' has got silver mugs and t'ings to boin, an' dat she's away down Sout', so dere ain't nobody in de house. Gee! I'll soak it to dat ​Swede! It was a raw deal, boss. He was just hopin' to put me in bad wit' you. Dat's bow it was, boss. Honest!"

      The big man listened to this sad story of Grecian gifts in silence. Not so the bull-dog, which growled from start to finish.

      Spike eyed it uneasily.

      "Won't you call off de dawg, boss?" he said.

      The other stooped, and grasped the animal's collar, jerking him away.

      "The same treatment," suggested Jimmy with approval, "would also do a world of good to this playful and affectionate animal—unless he is a vegetarian. In which case, don't bother."

      The big man glowered at him.

      "Who are you?" he demanded.

      "My name," began Jimmy, "is—"

      "Say," said Spike, "he's a champion burglar, boss—"

      The householder shut the door.

      "Eh?" he said.

      "He's a champion burglar from de odder side. He sure is. From Lunnon. Gee, he's de guy! Tell him about de bank you opened, an' de jools you swiped from de duchess, an' de what-d'ye-call-it blowpipe."

      It seemed to Jimmy that Spike was showing a certain want of tact. When you are discovered by a householder—with revolver—in his parlor at half-past three in the morning, it is surely an injudicious ​move to lay stress on your proficiency as a burglar. The householder may be supposed to take that for granted. The side of your character that should be advertised in such a crisis is the non-burglarious. Allusion should be made to the fact that, as a child, you attended Sunday school regularly, and to what the minister said when you took the divinity prize. The idea should be conveyed to the householder's mind that, if let off with a caution, your innate goodness of heart will lead you to reform and to avoid such scenes in future.

      With some astonishment, therefore, Jimmy found that these revelations, so far from prejudicing the man with the revolver against him, had apparently told in his favor. The man behind the gun was regarding