Jimmie Time hereupon behaved craftily. He lifted his head, showing the
face of a boy who had somehow got to be seventy years old without ever
getting to be more than a boy, and began to whistle softly and
innocently--an air of which hardly anything could be definitely said
except that it was not "The Rosary." It was very flagrantly not "The
Rosary." His craft availed him not.

"Yes, and you, too!" thundered the lady. "You was the worst--you was
singing. Didn't I hear you? How many times I got to tell you? First
thing you know, you little reprobate--"

Jimmie Time cowered again. Visibly he took on unbelievable years.

"Yes, ma'am," he whispered.

"Yes, ma'am," meekly echoed the tottering instrumentalist.

"Yes, ma'am," muttered Buck Devine, "not knowing you was anywheres
near--"

"Makes no difference where I be--you hear me!"

Although her back was toward me I felt her glare. The wretches winced.
She came a dozen steps toward me, then turned swiftly to glare again.
They shuddered, even though she spoke no word. Then she came on,
muttering hotly, and together we approached the ranch house. A dozen
feet from the door she bounded ahead of me with a cry of baffled rage. I
saw why. Lew Wee, unrecking her approach, was cold-bloodedly committing
an encore. She sped through the doorway, and I heard Lew Wee's
frightened squeal as he sped through another. When I stood in the room