He looks over Tony's shoulder suddenly and yells. "Hey, don't throw that!"
If they had rehearsed the act, Tony couldn't have fallen for the plant any harder. He twists his neck around to look back like the Kid figured and Scanlan started one from his left ankle. It caught Tony right on the button--which in English is the point of the chin--and Tony gives a imitation of a seal. He took a dive!
While we're takin' him away from his artillery, I look up and there's Van Ness lookin' down at us and frownin'. He reaches inside that Roman toga thing he's wearin' and comes out with a round piece of glass which he balances on one eye.
"Ah--I say!" he pipes, glarin' at the Kid. "This is getting jolly annoying, my man. It appears that every time we meet, you have just committed a murderous assault upon my dresser! Since you are the--ah--champion fighter of the universe, why do you not joust with more of its inhabitants and not center your activities upon one who knows nothing of the art of self-defense?"
The Kid grunts, takin' away Tony's guns and removin' a couple of them long banana knives from his clothes. Meanwhile, the daredevil dresser is showin' no more signs of life than a sleepin' alligator, so I figured it was about time to pull a little first aid stuff. I turned him over on his back and took off his coat, grabbin' it by the bottom and holdin' it up. They was a sudden crash and--Sweet Cookie! A lot of things fell on the ground, among 'em bein' one set of brass knuckles, one blackjack, two more guns, a thing that looked like a bayonet, five boxes of cartridges, a small bottle of nitro-glycerine and three sticks of dynamite! The last two fell in the folds of the coat, or we'd all have gone away from there. Tony's master looks at the layout with his eyes stickin' so far out of his head you could have knocked 'em off with a cane.
"This is the bird which don't know nothin' about self-defense, eh?" he grins, pointin' to Tony. "Well, if he'd been in Belgium a few years ago, I bet the Germans would never have got through!"
"Oh, I say!" gasps Van Ness. "This is a bit of a shock! Why the fellow is a walking arsenal!"
"He's more like a sleepin' fort, now!" I says, pointin' to Tony on the turf.