beside him at the steering-sweep, and also heard the one-sided
conversation.

"Just listen, friend Charles, and keep your own mouth shut,"
Liverpool began. "I want you to get one thing into your head and
keep it there: OLD DAD'S GOING BY THE POLICE. UNDERSTAND? HE'S
GOING BY. When they examine our outfit, old dad's got a fifth
share in it, savvee? That'll put us all 'way under what we ought
to have, but we can bluff it through. Now get this, and get it
hard: THERE AIN'T GOING TO BE ANY FALL-DOWN ON THIS BLUFF--"

"If you think I'd give away on the old codger--" Charles began
indignantly.

"You thought that," Liverpool checked him, "because I never
mentioned any such thing. Now--get me and get me hard: I don't
care what you've been thinking. It's what you're going to think.
We'll make the police post some time this afternoon, and we've got
to get ready to pull the bluff without a hitch, and a word to the
wise is plenty."

"If you think I've got it in my mind--" Charles began again.

"Look here," Liverpool shut him off. "I don't know what's in your
mind. I don't want to know. I want you to know what's in my mind.
If there's any slip-up, if old dad gets turned back by the police,
I'm going to pick out the first quiet bit of landscape and take you
ashore on it. And then I'm going to beat you up to the Queen's
taste. Get me, and get me hard. It ain't going to be any half-way
beating, but a real, two-legged, two-fisted, he-man beating. I