Willie Toothaker, the office boy of Tutt & Tutt, had perfected a catapult along the lines of those used in the Siege of Carthage—­form derived from the appendix of Allen and Greenough’s Latin Grammar—­which boded ill for the truck drivers of lower Gotham.

Since his translation from Pottsville Center, Willie’s inventive genius had worked something of a transformation in the Tutt & Tutt offices, for he had devised several labor-saving expedients, such as a complicated series of pulleys for opening windows and automatically closing doors without getting up; which, since they actually worked, Mr. Tutt, being a pragmatist, silently, patiently and good-naturedly endured.  To-day both partners were away in court and Willie had the office to himself with the exception of old Scraggs.

“Bet it’ll shoot a block!” asserted Willie, replacing his gum, which he had removed temporarily to avert the danger of swallowing it in his excitement.  “Caesar used one just like this—­only bigger, of course.  See that scuttle over on Washington Street?  Bet I can hit it!”

“Bet you can’t come within two hundred feet of it!” retorted the watery-eyed scrivener.  “It’s a lot further’n you think.”

“’Tain’t neither!” declared Willie.  “I know how far it is!  What can we shoot?”

Scraggs’ eye wandered aimlessly round the room.

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“Got to be something with heft to it,” said Willie. “’S got to overcome the resistance of the atmosphere.”

“How about that paperweight?”

“’S too heavy.”

“Well—­”

“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 had discovered that the attic scuttle was slightly ajar.