that
sort of gibberish."

"He makes the complaint that this here Hassoun"--he indicated the tall
man in the overcoat--"is violating Section 1093d of the regulations by
keeping a camel in his attic."

"Camel!" ejaculated the magistrate. "In his attic!"

Murphy nodded.

"It's there all right, judge!" he remarked. "I've seen it."

"Is that straight?" demanded His Honor. "How'd he get it up there? I
didn't suppose--"

Suddenly Sardi Babu threw himself fawning upon Hassoun.

"Oh, Kasheed Hassoun, I swear to thee that I made no complaint. It is a
falsification of the gendarme! And there was a boy--a red and yellow
boy--who said he had seen thy camel's head above the roofs! I am thy
friend!"

He twisted his writhing snakelike fingers together. Hassoun regarded him
coldly.

"Thou knowest the fate of informers and provocateurs--of spies--thou
infamous Turk!" he answered through his teeth.

"A Turk! A Turk!" shrieked Sardi Babu frantically, beating the breast of
his blue blouse. "Thou callest me a Turk! Me, the godson of Sarkis Babu
and of Elias Stephan--whose fathers and grandfathers were Christians
when thy family were worshipers of Mohammed. Blasphemy! Me, the godson
of a bishop!"

"I also am godson of a bishop!" sneered Kasheed. "A properly anointed
bishop! Without Tartar blood."

Sardi Babu grew purple.

"Ptha! I would spit upon the beard of such a bishop!" he shrieked,
beside himself.

Hassoun slightly raised his eyebrows.

"Spit, then, infamous one--while thou art able!"

"Here, here!" growled Burke in disgust. "Keep 'em still, can't you?
Now, what's all this about a camel?"

* * * * *

"That's the very scuttle, sir," asseverated Scraggs to the firm, as Tutt
& Tutt, including Miss Wiggin, gazed down curiously out of their office
windows at the penthouse upon the Washington Street roof which had been
Willie's target of the day before. "I don't say," he continued by way of
explanation, "that the camel stuck his head out because Willie hit the
roof with the bottle--it was probably just a circumstance--but it looked
that way. 'Bing!' went the ink bottle on the scuttle; and
then--pop!--out came the camel like a jack-in-the-box."

"What became of the camel?" inquired Miss Wiggin, cherishing a faint
hope that--pop!--it might suddenly appear again in the same way.

"The police took it away last night--lowered it out of the window with a
block and tackle," answered the scr