"I know!" exclaimed William suddenly. "Gimme that little bottle of red
ink. 'S just about right. And when it strikes it'll make a mark so's we
can tell where we hit--like a regular target."

Scraggs hesitated.

"Ink costs money," he protested.

"But it's just the thing!" insisted Willie. "Besides, you can charge me
for it in the cash account. Give it here!"

Conscience being thus satisfied the two eagerly placed the ink bottle in
the proper receptacle, which Willie had fashioned out of a stogy box,
twisted back the bow and aimed the apparatus at the slanting scuttle,
which projected from a sort of penthouse upon the roof of the tenement
house across the street.

"Now!" he exclaimed ecstatically. "Stand from under, Scraggs!"

He pressed a lever. There was a whang, a whistle--and the ink bottle
hurtled in a beautiful parabola over Greenwich Street.

"Gee! look at her go!" cried Willie in triumph. "Straight's a string."

At exactly that instant--and just as the bottle was about to descend
upon the penthouse--the scuttle opened and there was thrust forth a huge
yellow face with enormous sooty lips wreathed in an unmistakable smile.
On the long undulating neck the head resembled one of the grotesque
manikins carried in circus parades. Eset el Gazzar in a search for air