Wilt Thou Torchy | Page 9

At that Cecil just has to cut loose. Before I can stop him, he's stepped
out, pulled his gun, and is wavin' it at the two females.
"I say, now! Hands up! No nonsense," he orders.
"Howly saints!" wails the square-built party, clutchin' the slim one
desperate. "Maggie! Maggie!"
Maggie she's turned pale in the gills, her mouth is hangin' open, and her
eyes are bugged, but she ain't too scared to put up an argument.
"Have yez a warrant?" she demands. "Annyways, my Cousin Tim
Fealey'll go bail for us. An' if it was that Swede janitor next door made
the complaint on us I'll--"

"Woman!" breaks in the Lieutenant. "Don't you know that you have
been apprehended in a grave offense? You'd best tell all. Now, who put
you up to this? Your master, eh?"
"Howly saints! Mr. Bauer!" groans the fat one.
"For the love of the saints, don't tell him!" says Maggie. "Don't tell Mr.
Bauer, there's a dear. It was off'm Cousin Tim we got it."
"That miscreant in the shed there?" asks the Lieutenant.
"Him?" says Maggie. "Lord love ye, no. That's only Schwartzenberger,
from the slaughter-house. And please, Mister, it'll be gone the
mornin'--ivry bit gone."
"Oh, will it!" says Cecil sarcastic. "But you'll be in prison first."
"Wurra! Wurra!" moans the fat female. "Save us, Maggie! Let him
have it for the takin's."
"I will not, then," says Maggie. "Not if he's the president of the Board
of Health himself."
"Enough of this," says the Lieutenant. "Hands up, you bomb plotters!"
But about then I'd begun to acquire the hunch that we might be makin'
a slight mistake, and that it was time for me to crash in. Which I does.
"Excuse me," says I; "but maybe it would help, Maggie, if you'd say
right out what it is you've got in the shed there."
"What is ut?" says she, tossin' her head defiant. "As though you didn't
know! Well, it's a pig, then."
"A pig!" sneers the Lieutenant. "Very likely, that is!"
"Yez didn't think it was a hip-pot-ta-mus, did ye?" comes back Maggie.
"An' why should you be after botherin' us with your health
ordinances--two poor girls that has a chance to turn a few pennies, with

pork so dear? 'Look at all that good swill goin' to waste,' says I to Katie
here. 'An' who's to care if I do boil some extra praties now an' then? Mr.
Bauer's that rich, ain't he? An' what harm at all should there be in raisin'
one little shoat in th' back yard?' So there, Mister! Do your worst. An'
maybe it's only a warnin' I'll get from th' justice when he hears how
Schwartzenberger's killed and dressed and taken him off before
daylight. There he goes, the poor darlint! That's his last squeal."
We didn't need to stretch our ears to catch it. I looks over at the
Lieutenant and grins foolish. But he wouldn't be satisfied until Maggie
had towed him out to view the remains. He's pink behind the ears when
he comes back, too.
"Please, Mister Inspector," says Maggie, "you'll not have us up this
time, will yez?"
"Bah!" says Cecil.
"Seein' it's you," says I, "he won't. Course, though, a report of this plot
of yours'll have to be made to the British War Office."
"Oh, I say now!" protests the Lieutenant.
And all the way down to his hotel he holds that vivid neck tint.
"Well," says Old Hickory, as I drifts back to the office, "did you and
the Lieutenant discover any serious plot of international character?"
"Sure thing!" says I. "We found a contraband Irish pig in Herman
Bauer's back yard.
"Wha-a-at?" he demands.
"If the pig had been a bomb, and its tail a time-fuse," says I, "it would
have wrecked our main works. As it, is, we've had a narrow escape. But
I don't think Cecil will bother us any more. He's too good for the army,
anyway. He ought to be writin' for the movies."

CHAPTER III
TORCHY HANDS OUT A SPILL
Maybe I've indulged, now and then, in a few remarks on Auntie. But,
say, there's no danger of exhaustin' the subject--not a chance. For she's
some complicated old girl, take it from me. First off, there's that
stick-around disposition of hers. Now, I expect that just naturally grew
on her, same as my pink thatch did on me. She can't help it; and what's
the use blamin' her for it?
So, when I drop in for my reg'lar Wednesday and Sunday night calls,
the main object of the expedition being to swap a little friendly chatter
with Vee, and I find Auntie planted prominent and permanent in the
sittin'-room, why, I just grins and makes the best of it.
A patient and