Big Patsy sneered. The Kerry Pig snorted. Wallace uttered The Sound. “That is rich,” said Big Patsy, sneering. “That is very rich, indeed. You,” he said, pointing a long, thick, impeccably manicured finger, “are a bird. I will tell you wherein you have offended us. As of two o’clock yesterday afternoon every gendarme and shamus in New York City it is looking for us with photographs pasted as it were on the undersides of their caps (if uniformed). They have this idea, which it’s a lie, a slander, and a base canard, that it was we whom give Angie the Rat them lead Miltowns to swallow.”

Fred received this intelligence with some surprise, it being well-known, from Canal to Fourteenth, that Big Patsy y Cia, avoided photography with a zeal which would have done honor to an Old Rite Amishman.

“The reason the constables they have this absurd notion,” continued Big P., “is that one of them Hoosiers who you were esquiring around The Village at the moment of The Rat’s demise, had nothing better to do with his time but get out his old Brownie and snap the three of us at the moment of our departure, which it was purely coincidental, I need hardly add.”

“Instead of getting down on his knees and yelling an Act of Contrition in the poor man’s ear,” said The Kerry Pig.

“As a result of which,” Big Patsy continued, “every pothead, hippie, hipster and lady of the evening is now free to walk the city streets unmolested, whilst the entire might of the law is coincided on hunting we three down as if we were wild beasts of the field or suchlike: which it’s All Your Fault.” And he gazed at Red Fred with no small measure of discontent.

“And in conclusion,” Wallace Fish began, concluding with alarming rapidity as Big Patsy deftly inserted his elbow between the aforementioned’s fifth and sixth ribs.

“In conclusion,” Big Patsy took up the standard for his stricken comrade, “since the source of our discomfort stems at least indirectly from your direction, I and the boys has held solemn conclave together and have, like, decided that the source of our deliverance will emanate from the selfsame source, to wit—you.”