“You don’t know your business,” a loud voice proclaimed, addressing the policeman.  “If you did you wouldn’t be sitting up there like a dummy already.  This here driver run into us.  We didn’t run into him.”

It was the male occupant of the automobile that spoke, and in vain did his fair companion clutch at the tails of the linen duster that he wore; he was in the full tide of eloquence and thoroughly enjoying himself.

The mounted policeman maintained his composure—­the calm of a volcano before its eruption, the ominous lull that precedes the tornado.

“And furthermore,” continued the passenger, throwing out his chest, whereon sparkled a large diamond enfolded in crimson silk—­“and furthermore, I’ll see to it that them superiors of yours down below hears of it.”

The mounted policeman jumped nimbly from his horse, and as Morris rose in the tonneau of his automobile he saw Max Tuchman being jerked bodily to the street, while his fair companion shrieked hysterically.

Morris opened the door and sprang out.  With unusual energy he wormed his way through the crowd that surrounded the policeman and approached the side of the automobile.

“Lady, lady,” he cried, “I don’t remember your name, but I’m a friend of Max Tuchman here, and I’ll get you out of this here crowd in a minute.”

He opened the door opposite to the side out of which Tuchman had made his enforced exit, and offered his hand to Max’s trembling companion.

The lady hesitated a brief moment.  Any port in a storm, she argued to herself, and a moment later she was seated beside Morris in the latter’s car, which was moving up the Avenue at a good twenty-mile gait.  The chauffeur took advantage of the traffic policeman’s professional engagement with Max Tuchman, and it was not until the next mounted officer hove into view that he brought his car down to its lawful gait.

“If you’re a friend of Mr. Tuchman’s,” said the lady at length, “why didn’t you go with him to the police station and bail him out?”

Morris grinned.  “I guess you’ll know when I tell it you that my name is Mr. Perlmutter,” he announced, “of Potash & Perlmutter.”

The lady turned around and glanced uneasily at Morris.  “Is that so?” she said.  “Well, I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Perlmutter.”

“So, naturally, I don’t feel so bad as I might about it,” Morris went on.

“Naturally?” the lady commented.  She looked about her apprehensively.  “Perhaps we’d better go back to the Prince William.  Don’t you think so?”

“Why, you was going up to the Heatherbloom Inn with Max Tuchman, wasn’t you?” Morris said.

“How did you find that out?” she asked.

“A small-size bird told it me,” Morris replied jocularly.  “But, anyhow, no jokes nor nothing, why shouldn’t we go up and have lunch at the Heatherbloom Inn?  And then you can come down and look at our line, anyhow.”