“He makes the complaint that this here Hassoun”—­he indicated the tall man in the overcoat—­“is violating Section 1093d of the regulations by keeping a camel in his attic.”

“Camel!” ejaculated the magistrate.  “In his attic!”

Murphy nodded.

“It’s there all right, judge!” he remarked.  “I’ve seen it.”

“Is that straight?” demanded His Honor.  “How’d he get it up there?  I didn’t suppose—­”

Suddenly Sardi Babu threw himself fawning upon Hassoun.

“Oh, Kasheed Hassoun, I swear to thee that I made no complaint.  It is a falsification of the gendarme!  And there was a boy—­a red and yellow boy—­who said he had seen thy camel’s head above the roofs!  I am thy friend!”

He twisted his writhing snakelike fingers together.  Hassoun regarded him coldly.

“Thou knowest the fate of informers and provocateurs—­of spies—­thou infamous Turk!” he answered through his teeth.

“A Turk!  A Turk!” shrieked Sardi Babu frantically, beating the breast of his blue blouse.  “Thou callest me a Turk!  Me, the godson of Sarkis Babu and of Elias Stephan—­whose fathers and grandfathers were Christians when thy family were worshipers of Mohammed.  Blasphemy!  Me, the godson of a bishop!”

“I also am godson of a bishop!” sneered Kasheed.  “A properly anointed bishop!  Without Tartar blood.”

Sardi Babu grew purple.

“Ptha!  I would spit upon the beard of such a bishop!” he shrieked, beside himself.

Hassoun slightly raised his eyebrows.

“Spit, then, infamous one—­while thou art able!”

“Here, here!” growled Burke in disgust.  “Keep ’em still, can’t you?  Now, what’s all this about a camel?”

* * * * *

“That’s the very scuttle, sir,” asseverated Scraggs to the firm, as Tutt & Tutt, including Miss Wiggin, gazed down curiously out of their office windows at the penthouse upon the Washington Street roof which had been Willie’s target of the day before.  “I don’t say,” he continued by way of explanation, “that the camel stuck his head out because Willie hit the roof with the bottle—­it was probably just a circumstance—­but it looked that way.  ‘Bing!’ went the ink bottle on the scuttle; and then—­pop!—­out came the camel like a jack-in-the-box.”

“What became of the camel?” inquired Miss Wiggin, cherishing a faint hope that—­pop!—­it might suddenly appear again in the same way.

“The police took it away last night—­lowered it out of the window with a block and tackle,” answered the scrivener.  “A sort of breeches buoy.”

“I’ve heard of camel’s-hair shawls but not of camel’s-hair breeches!” murmured Tutt.  “I suppose if a camel wore pants—­well, my imagination refuses to contemplate the spectacle!  Where’s Willie?”

“He hasn’t been in at all this morning!” said Miss Wiggin.  “I’ll warrant—­”

“What?” demanded Mr. Tutt suspiciously.