Page:MacGrath--The drums of jeopardy.djvu/73

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The Drums of Jeopardy
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basis that the intention was honest. Who can say that the rattlesnake does not consider his intentions honourable?

The attribute lacking in the ape to make him human is continuity of thought and action in all things save one. He often starts out well but he never arrives. His interest is never sustained. He drops one thing and turns to another. The exception is his enmity, savage and cunning, relentless and enduring.

Kitty was awake to one fact. She could not venture to dig into this affair alone. On the other hand, she did not want one of the men from the city room—a reporter who would see nothing but news. If Gregor was only a prisoner publicity might be the cause of his death; and publicity would certainly react hardily against Johnny Two-Hawks. To whom might she turn?

Cutty!—with his great physical strength, his shrewd and alert mentality, and his wide knowledge of peoples and tongues. There was the man for her—Kitty Conover's godfather. She dumped the contents of her handbag upon the stand in the hallway in her impatience to find Cutty's card with his telephone number. It was not in the directory. She might catch him before he went out for the evening.

A Japanese voice answered her call.

"’Scuse, but he iss out."