chair.

"Say, Sondheim," he began, "I been to the club this morning, and I've
seen what you've done to the place."

"Well?" demanded Sondheim, in a growling voice, "what haf we done?"

"Oh, nothing;--smashed the furniture f'r instance. That's all. But it
don't go with me. See?"

Kastner got up and gave him a sinister, near-sighted look: "If ve done
damach ve pay," he remarked.

"Sure you'll pay!" blustered Skidder. "And that's all right, too. But
no more for yours truly. I'm through. Here's where your bunch quits
the hall for keeps. Get me?"

"Please?" inquired Kastner, turning a brick red.

"I say I'm through!" blustered Skidder. "You gotta get other quarters.
It don't pay us to keep on buying benches and mending windows, even if
you cough up for 'em. It don't pay us to rent the hall to your club
and get all this here notoriety, what with your red flags and the
_po_-lice hanging around and nosin' into everything----"

"Ach wass!" snapped Kastner, "of vat are you speaking? Iss it for you
to concern yourself mit our club und vat iss it ve do?"

"Say, who d'yeh think you're talkin' to?" retorted Skidder, his eyes
snapping furiously. "Grab this from me, old scout?--I'm half owner of
that hall and I'm telling you to get out! Is that plain?"

"So?" Kastner sneered at him and nudged Sondheim, who immediately sat
up in bed and levelled an unwashed hand at Skidder.

"You think you fire us?" he shouted, his eyes inflamed and his dirty
fingers crisping to a talon. "You go home and tell Puma what you say
to us. Then you learn something maybe, what you don't know already!"

"I'll learn _you_ something!" retorted Skidder. "Just wait till I show
Puma the wreckage----"

"Let him look at it and be damned!" roared Bromberg. "Go home and show
it to him! And see if he talks about firing us!"

"Say," demanded Skidder, astonished, "do you fellows think you got any
drag with Angy Puma?"

"Go back and ask him!" growled Bromberg. "And don't try to come around
here and get fresh again. Listen! You go buy what benches you say we
broke and send the bill to me, and keep your mouth shut and mind your
fool business!"

"I'll mind my own and yours too!" screamed Skidder, seized by an
ungovernable access of fury. "Say, you poor nut!--you sick mink!--you
stale hunk of cheese!--if you come down my way again I'll kick your
shirttail for you! Get that?" And he slammed the door and strode out
in a flaming rage.

But when, still furiou