Cut in your jump-crossing now, if you
can, you whelp, and be damned to you. I've got you blocked!"
"I rather imagine this nice gentleman has it on us, old dear,"
chirped Buck Ogilvy plaintively. "Well! We did our damndest, which
angels can't do no more. Let us gather up our tools and go home, my
son, for something tells me that if I hang around here I'll bust one
of two things--this sleek scoundrel's gray head or one of my
bellicose veins! Hello! Whom have we here?"
Bryce turned and found himself facing Shirley Sumner. Her tender lip
was quivering, and the tears shone in her eyes like stars. He stared
at her in silence.
"My friend," she murmured tremulously, "didn't I tell you I would not
permit you to build the N.C.O.?"
He bowed his head in rage and shame at his defeat. Buck Ogilvy took
him by the arm. "''Tis midnight's holy hour,'" he quoted, "'and
silence now is brooding like a gentle spirit o'er a still and
pulseless world.' Bryce, old chap, this is one of those occasions
where silence is golden. Speak not. I'll do it for you. Miss Sumner,"
he continued, bowing graciously, "and Colonel Pennington," favouring
that triumphant rascal with an equally gracious bow, "we leave you in
possession of the field--temporarily. However, if anybody should
drive up in a hack and lean out and ask you, just tell him Buck
Ogilvy has another trump tucked away in his kimono.
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