"
His pale eyes swept the floor; he pounced forward and recovered a sheaf
of blue-prints from a corner.
"This, I take it," he muttered, "was what they was arguing about when
we busted in. Steve, them's our bridge estimates--and there wa'n't no
copies of 'em, either. It wouldn't take us more than two weeks to
replace 'em neither--not more'n two precious, priceless weeks. I'm
only hopin' now that when our other caller, who seems to want them more
than we do, calls again, I'll be here myself to entertain him, with tea
or somethin'. I'd plumb hate to seem so inhospitable as not to be
home, twice hand-runnin', to visitors."
Fat Joe's round face was congested with murderous rage before he had
finished, but Steve seemed hardly to have heard him at all. He had
finally straightened out that sickeningly slack figure upon his own
bunk. He was listening now to his heart, and at a jerk of his head Fat
Joe joined him at the bedside. The latter's thick fingers were as
delicate, as competent, as a skilled physician's might have been. He,
too, listened and peeled back the unconscious man's eyelids. He shook
his head, dubiously.
"Maybe that was a tidy little battle, while it lasted," he stated, "but
it ain't deuce high alongside this fight we've got on our hands right
now. For he's just as near over as I'd care to see a man, unless it
was someone I'd a little prefer dead! It ain't that scratch on the
head that's got him slippin', either.
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