uch like a bear-trap, seized Signor Ricardo by the
forearm of the hand which held the knife. With his unengaged hand Biff
then smacked the Signor Ricardo right severely on the wrist.

"You don't mean it, you know, Sig-nor Garlic," he calmly observed. "If
I thought you did I'd smack you on both wrists. Why, you little red
balloon, I ain't afraid of any mutt on earth that carries a knife like
that, as long as I got my back to the wall."

Still holding the putty-like Signor by the forearm, he delicately
abstracted from his clasp the huge knife, and, folding it up gravely,
handed it back to him; then deliberately he turned his back on the
Signor and pushed his way through the delightedly horror-stricken
emotionalists who had gathered at the fray, and strolled over to where
Signorina Caravaggio had stood an interested and mirth-shaken
observer.

"You mustn't think all Italians are like that, Biff," she said, her
first impulse, as always, to see justice done; "but singers are a
different breed. I don't think he's bluffing, altogether. If he got a
real good chance some place in the dark, and was sure that he wouldn't
be caught, he might use a stiletto on you."

"If he ever does I'll slap his forehead," said Biff. "But say, he uses
that cleaver again in the show?"

The Signorina Nora shrugged her shoulders.

"He's supposed to stab me with it in this next act."

"He is!" exclaimed Biff. "Well, just so he don't make any mistake I'm
going over and paste him one."

It was not necessary, for Signor Ricardo, after studying the matter
over and seeing no other way out of it, proceeded to have a fit. No
one, not even the illustrious Signor, could tell just how much of that
fit was deliberate and artificial, and just how much was due to an
overwrought sensitive organization, but certain it was that the Signor
Ricardo was quite unable to go on with the performance, and Monsieur
Noire himself, as agitated as a moment before the great Ricardo had
been, frantically rushed up to Biff and grabbed him roughly by the
shoulders.

"Too long," shrieked he, "we have let you be annoying the artists, by
reason of the Caravaggio. But now you shall do the skidooing."

With a laugh Biff looked back over his shoulder at the Caravaggio, and
permitted Monsieur Noire to eject him bodily from the stage door upon
the alley.

The next morning, owing to the prompt action and foresightedness of
Spratt, all the papers contained the very pretty story