Osterman. "Whatever in the world is the matter
with Buck?"

Confused and terrible sounds came from behind the door of Annixter's
room. A prolonged monologue of grievance, broken by explosions of wrath
and the vague noise of some one in a furious hurry. All at once and
before Harran had a chance to knock on the door, Annixter flung it open.
His face was blazing with anger, his outthrust lip more prominent than
ever, his wiry, yellow hair in disarray, the tuft on the crown sticking
straight into the air like the upraised hackles of an angry hound.
Evidently he had been dressing himself with the most headlong rapidity;
he had not yet put on his coat and vest, but carried them over his arm,
while with his disengaged hand he kept hitching his suspenders over his
shoulders with a persistent and hypnotic gesture. Without a moment's
pause he gave vent to his indignation in a torrent of words.

"Ah, yes, in my bed, sloop, aha! I know the man who put it there," he
went on, glaring at Osterman, "and that man is a PIP. Sloop! Slimy,
disgusting stuff; you heard me say I didn't like it when the Chink
passed it to me at dinner--and just for that reason you put it in my
bed, and I stick my feet into it when I turn in. Funny, isn't it? Oh,
yes, too funny for any use. I'd laugh a little louder if I was you."

"Well, Buck," protested Harran, as he noticed the hat in Annixter's
hand, "you're not going home just for----"

Annixter turned on him with a shout.

"I'll get plumb out of here," he trumpeted. "I won't stay here another
minute."

He swung into his waistcoat and coat, scrabbling at the buttons in the
violence of his emotions. "And I don't know but what it will make me
sick again to go out in a night like this. NO, I won't stay. Some things
are funny, and then, again, there are some things that are not. Ah, yes,
sloop! Well, that's all right. I can be funny, too, when you come to
that. You don't get a cent of money out of me. You can do your dirty
bribery in your own dirty way. I won't come into this scheme at all.
I wash my hands of the whole business. It's rotten and it's wild-eyed;
it's dirt from start to finish; and you'll all land in State's prison.
You can count me out."

"But, Buck, look here, you crazy fool," cried Harran, "I don't know who
put that stuff in your bed, but I'm not going; to let you go back to
Quien Sabe in a rain like this."

"I know who put it in," clamoured the other, shaking his fists, "and
don't