them guys up, but
they're all desperate, darin' and dolled up!"

"What the--what's the big idea?" I gasps.

"Hold up your hands!" roars the Kid at his rough and readys.

They did--and I got it!

Each and every one of them guys had a snake tattooed on the third
finger of his right hand!

The Kid had probably put in the mornin' rehearsin' 'em, because all he
had to say now was, "Go to it!" and they beat it. He told me they was
all goin' up to the Fritz-Charlton and ask for the stout dame at three
minute intervals, show their right hand and claim they was Marc Anthony!

"If that don't show the stout dame that the professor is the bunk and
if she don't let out a moan that'll be plainly heard at police
headquarters, I'll make Dan a present of the five thousand he took me
for!" says the Kid.

In about a hour the telephone begins to ring and I answers it. When
the ravin' maniac on the other end of the wire got to where he could
control the English language, I found out it was no less than Honest
Dan. The main thing he said was for us to come down to the Temple of
the Inner Star right away, because him and the professor has got in a
terrible jam. We hopped in a taxi and did like he said. Honest Dan is
waitin' in the elevator for us, and he looked like the loser in a
battle royal. He says the stout dame has just left, and she's in a
terrible state. I could believe that easy, because they is nothin'
more vicious in the land of the free than a enraged come-on. I'd
rather face a nervous wildcat than face a angry boob!

"Somebody put the bee on us!" howls Honest Dan, wringin' his hands.
"And a truckload of guys went up to the hotel claimin' they was Marc
Anthony in voices that disturbed people in China. They throwed the
real Marc out on his lily white ear, and seven of 'em got pinched for
disorderly conduct. I understand they was a melee up there that would
make a football game look like chess and the papers is havin' a field
day with the thing! We got to grab Cleopatra's gems and go away from
here before the whole plant is uncovered."

"Why," I says, "how are you gonna take the stout dame now? She knows
it's a fake, don't she?"

"Fake, hell!" hollers Dan. "_She thinks it's on the level_! The only
thing that bothers her is which one is the _right_ Marc Anthony. She
says two of them had such patrician faces that she thinks some of the
Caesars has got mixed up with the lot. She's gonna put it up to her
la