with gaunt inelegant limbs casually placed at convenient corners of his
body, and a face like a carving abandoned at an early stage as
altogether too unpromising for completion. His nose had been left
square, and his lower jaw projected beyond his upper. He breathed
audibly. Few people considered him handsome. His hair was entirely
tangential, and his voice, which he used sparingly, was pitched high,
and had commonly a quality of bitter protest. He wore a grey cloth
jacket suit and a silk hat on all occasions. He plumbed an abysmal
trouser pocket with a vast red hand, paid his cabman, and came panting
resolutely up the steps, a copy of the pink paper clutched about the
middle, like Jove's thunderbolt, in his hand.

"Skinner?" Bensington was saying, regardless of his approach.

"Nothing about him," said Redwood. "Bound to be eaten. Both of them.
It's too terrible.... Hullo! Cossar!"

"This your stuff?" asked Cossar, waving the paper.

"Well, why don't you stop it?" he demanded.

"_Can't_ be jiggered!" said Cossar.

"_Buy the place_?" he cried. "What nonsense! Burn it! I knew you chaps
would fumble this. _What are you to do_? Why--what I tell you.

"_You_? Do? Why! Go up the street to the gunsmith's, of course. _Why_?
For guns. Yes--there's only one shop. Get eight guns! Rifles. Not
elephant guns--no! Too big. Not army rifles--too small. Say it's to
kill--kill a bull. Say it's to shoot buffalo! See? Eh? Rats? No! How the