DIRTY BOOTS

In the distance a zepplin floated above the London sky. It carried several bombs that would after a fashion drop like eggs from its belly to deliver terror, and a few deaths, to the sleeping city. The nighttime attacks were becoming a nuisance to the British, a public relations nightmare, but little more. But as of yet the search lights had not caught sight of it. Presently, a single, seeking beam panned the sky.

Bellow, Baggett felt he was being watched. From the museum down to the the old Chelsea slum, he felt that he was being oppressed by some unknown gaze. That the gaze was scanning him, putting him into categories, was inescapable. That it was so stealthy as to avoid his cone of sight, so nimble as to make no sound, so crafty that he felt, himself, a target, was unthinkable. But yet, several times he had quickly turned around expecting to, bracing himself for,—a foe? This was indeed bad business; he would tell the Chinaman in the morning, he decided . . . in the morning, after this one last time. He was too important for this kind of errand. The thought of it made him ill. He approached the building and began to climb the staircase. He saw a cat eating a rodent on the steps, and he pulled a small rock out of his pocket and threw it at the tom. Two other cats whom he had not seen darted from under the stairwell and flew off in opposite directions, but the original tom was unaffected. He feasted hungrily upon the kill. Baggett reached back into his pocket for a bigger rock.

Up above, the lighted beam continuing to probe the night hit finally upon a target, the German Navy Zepplin L-35. Two additional beams quickly transfixed themselves to the ship and after a few moments flares began to follow their trajectory toward the hulking German blimp.

With apparent indifference the cat continued eat. He was the color of earth. Baggett's second rock was ignored, though is it was close to hitting the animal's head. Baggett pulled out his very large revolver and aimed it at the recalcitrant cat. Baggett closed one eye, twisted up his face; but at the very last moment he decided against the noise this tactic would generate. Just then the first of the explosions blasted through the London night, and he felt no longer any compunction to use his weapon. He aimed the gun at Mister Boots.