WILL AND WAY
387
What rang a bell was the low mocking bow he made as she
ambled seductively past him.
"Come near me and I'll scream," Miss Flatface returned with
surprising presence of mind.
"Don't panic. I'm not going to force you. Did I ever force you
to do anything?"
Miss Flatface remembered. The answer was no.
"Just come back," he said. "We'll forget everything that's
happened."
"You sound like Jim," she said.
A sulky coquettish expression passed across Mr. Obscenity's
features. He had decided to ignore her last remark. "I'm not as
spry
as I used to be," he mused aloud. "I don't know why, but
I'm tired."
"I'm not," she said. "At least, not yet."
"Well, just tell me one thing. Has that rat Jug found you yet?"
Miss Flatface slowly began to realize this new, unearned power
she had over Mr. Obscenity.
"Because
if
he does," he continued, "and you listen to him,
I'll kill you both." He snarled. "Listen to me!
If
not for me, then
for your own sake. Don't you realize he's the undoing of all that
you and I have done?"
Miss Flatface considered that this was possibly so, but she
wouldn't give Mr. Obscenity the satisfaction of letting him know
she agreed with him.
"Well," he said, sighing, "let's get it over with. On the house,
of course."
"Certainly not," said Miss Flatface with great severity. "I'm
not a charitable institution."
"I was," said Mr. Obscenity.
His irony, intended to arouse sympathy, backfired. Miss Flat–
face laughed. Mr. Obscenity'S lips became foamy, and he parted
them in a sinister smile which disclosed a set of razor-sharp teeth.
He advanced gruesomely, inexorably.
Miss F1atface made the sign of the cross. It didn't work. But,
opportunely, a tree toppled and grazed him on the skull, leaving
Miss Flatface plenty of time to slip down an alley and make her
escape.
