ck you out into the street, you young p-p-p-pup," he
stuttered in his rage.

His knotted fingers writhed out for a hold on the other's collar. With
a sinuous movement, the visitor swerved aside and struck the other man,
flat-handed, across the face. There was an answering howl of demoniac
fury. Then a strange thing happened. The assailant turned and fled, not
to the ready egress of the front door, but down the dark stairway to the
basement. The judge thundered after, in maddened, unthinking pursuit.
Average Jones ran fleetly and easily. And his running was not for the
purpose of flight alone, for as he sped through the basement rooms, he
kept casting swift glances from side to side, and up and down the walls.
The heavyweight pursuer could not get nearer than half a dozen paces.

From the kitchen Average Jones burst into the hallway, doubled back up
the stairs and made a tour of the big drawing-rooms and living-rooms of
the first floor. Here, too, his glance swept room after room, from floor
to ceiling. The chase then led upward to the second floor, and by direct
ascent to the third. Breathing heavily, judge Ackroyd lumbered after the
more active man. In his dogged rage, he never thought to stop and block
the hall-way; but trailed his quarry like a bloodhound through every
room of the third floor, and upward to the fourth. Half-way up this
stairway, Average Jones checked his speed and surveyed the hall above.
As he started again he stumbled and sprawled. A more competent observer
than the infuriated pursuer might have noticed that he fell cunningly.
But judge Ackroyd gave a shout of savage triumph and increased his
speed. He stretched his hand to grip the fugitive. It had almost touched
him when he leaped, to his feet and resumed his flight.

"I'll get you now!" panted the judge.

The fourth floor of the old house was almost bare. In a hall-embrasure
hung a full-length mirror. All along the borders of this, Average Jones'
quick ranging vision had discerned small red-banded objects which moved
and shifted. As the glass reflected his extended figure, it showed,
almost at the same instant, the outstretched, bony hand of "Oily"
Ackroyd. With a snarl, half rage, half satisfaction, the pursuer hurled
himself forward--and fell, with a plunge that rattled the house's old
bones. For, as he reached, Jones, trained on many a foot-ball field, had
whirled and dived at his knees. Before the fallen man could gather his
shaken wits,