"You need to remember that you were making a stork-leg at the same time, my dear Count; also that both of the times this cursed American attacked me I was at work on one of your jobs and giving my whole attention to that. If I've got to attend to our joint business it seems to me that you might at least give orders that this rôdeur be put out of business. If you will do that I will agree to take up this job on your own terms."
Ivan shook his head. "No," says he, "that is strictly your own affair. I don't want anything to do with it."
Chu-Chu hesitated a minute, then he said: "Chief, I will tell you what I'll do. If you will rid me of the American I will consider that as my share of the transaction and do the job gratuitously. I can't do my work when I don't know what minute I may get a knife under the shoulder-blade."
Here was high praise, let me tell you; Chu-Chu asking for help. That was more than I had hoped for; and, if it hadn't been for my promise to Sœur Anne Marie, let me tell you that his cry for help would have come too late. Did you ever see a bull-terrier crouching in front of a badger's cage watching, as silent and as still as a tombstone, barring only the fine shiver rippling through him every few minutes? That's the way I was watching Chu-Chu. Maybe I was more like a cat, for there was no shiver going through me—only a sort of quiet, deadly patience, for I knew that he was not for me just yet. Perhaps the very fact of my not intending to kill him was what kept him from sensing me up there on the wall, though I was screened by the
