Biff

“ As Biff climbed out, Chandra called to him from the pool:
"Maybe you go back to your American clothes, hey? Nobody we meet will guess who you are. You'll find them in my pack."
That was the best idea yet, for Biff was tired of his Sikh costume, particularly the bothersome turban. While Chandra and Kamuka were finishing their swim, Biff dressed in his own clothes. Then he strolled over to look at an ancient stone platform that someone had uncovered from the jungle roots. ”

“ But Biff, when the problem was propounded to him, only laughed.
“His steady has lemoned him,” declared Biff. “Any time a guy’s making plenty of money and got good health and ain’t married, and goes around with an all-day grouch, you can play it for a one to a hundred favorite that his entry’s been scratched in the solitaire diamond stakes.”
“Uh-huh,” responded the taciturn Johnson, and stalked back with grim purpose to the Electric Company’s office, of which Bobby and Johnson and Applerod had taken immediate possession. ”

“ Biff shook his head. He knew he looked like Derek. But Uncle Charlie was really asking a lot.
“Gosh, Uncle Charlie. It’s one thing for me to substitute for Derek when it’s only a joke. Like at the airport. But to do this—this is for big stakes.”
“I know, Biff. But, considering the fact that you will actually be doing this so the just rights of a man will be established, I don’t think you would be doing anything morally wrong.”
“No, I guess not. We would be stopping Dietz from stealing what belongs to someone else.” ”

“ Though this measure of self-awareness is not likely in Sri Lanka, Biff tells his father that his failure was due, not to spite, but because he had been filled with hot air. His father in particular, but others too, had made him think so much of himself, that he had built his life on a myth, unable to accept the fact that he was just an ordinary sort of guy. ”

“ Biff asked himself. “If he doesn’t get here right now, we’ll lose Specks.” Biff stepped out from behind the huge plant and glanced up the curving stairs. No Uncle Charlie. Biff did think that he heard someone coming down, coming fast, taking two or more steps at a time. “That must be he,” Biff thought. He decided to go after Specks, hoping his uncle would be right behind.
In the curved driveway outside the hotel, Biff looked right and left. Specks must have pulled out of there at a rapid clip. He wasn’t in sight. Uncle Charlie came out of the hotel, taking the three steps at a leap. ”

“ We’d better forget it,” muttered Chet sheepishly. “I can’t seem to get the hang of this steering business. I’d rather be just a passenger, anyway.”
“That suits everybody,” growled Biff. “When I go out ice-boating I don’t care to spend half of my time chasing the boat.”
Joe snickered. The recollection of Biff slipping and sliding across the ice in pursuit of the runaway craft, and then slipping and sliding with the boat in pursuit of him, appealed to Joe’s sense of humor. That snicker was like a match touched to gunpowder, for Frank also laughed, then Chet, and finally Biff himself had to grin. ”

“ Uncle Charlie demanded.
“Crunch has the key,” Biff said.
“And you’ve scared him so badly he’ll never come back. Let me take a look at this lock.”
Charlie examined the lock carefully.
“It’s no good, Biff. It’s too strong to force. I can’t open this lock. You’re just going to have to magic your way out.”
“Or get Crunch to come back and let me out.”
“Think you can, Biff? I doubt it.”
“I can try,” Biff replied. “Crunch and I were getting to be good friends. He’s not a bad guy. Dietz has a hold on him and forces him to do this dirty work. I’m going to call him.... Crunch!” Biff sang out. ”

“ Biff withdrew another few feet. He wanted the big man to chase him. It took Crunch a little time to figure out the situation. Then, as he saw Biff move farther away from him, he made up his mind. He lunged toward Biff. Biff turned and ran.
The plan was working out fine. Derek would have plenty of time and opportunity to get out of his jail and head for the gateway.
Everything was fine with one exception. Suppose Crunch overtook Biff? The boy could almost feel the massive arms of the giant closing around him. Crunch’s grasp would be as powerful as that of a boa constrictor. ”

“ How ’bout you?”
“The same.”
“Okay, Biff. We’ll rendezvous outside this gate at exactly six forty-five. It will still be light by then. But darkness comes fast. Night falls as fast as a theater curtain in the tropics. One minute it’s daylight. The next it’s dark. Dusk lasts about one minute. All set?”
“Right. And I hope you see double when we rendezvous.”
“See double?” Uncle Charlie was momentarily puzzled.
“Derek and me,” Biff said, grinning.
“Oh. I get you. Guess I’d stopped thinking clearly for a moment this time. Good luck, Biff.”
Charles Keene started the car and drove toward the hacienda. ”

“ Biff and Derek, Brom Zook’s seventeen-year-old son, accidentally board the same plane in Miami and innocently exchange “identities” to play a joke. However, the joke backfires when Biff is kidnapped at the Willemstad Airport by the unscrupulous adventurers who want the pearl fishery. ”

“ Biff asked when he and Derek rejoined Charlie Keene.
“We carry on as if we knew nothing. We’ll explore another place this morning. We’ll go to Trinité this afternoon and replenish our air and food supplies. Tonight, we’ll be ready to give Dietz an unexpected reception.”
136
The pearl diving that morning was no more productive than it had been the previous day. Noon found the three in the cabin cruiser, heading for Trinité. In town, Derek left Biff and his uncle. He was off on his quest for his father. ”

“ If neither Brom Zook nor Derek appears, then Dietz moves in, files his claim, and then it would be most difficult for Brom Zook to reestablish his rights.”
Biff nodded his head thoughtfully.
“Uncle Charlie, when does that ninety-day time limit expire?”
“Tomorrow afternoon, Biff. At four o’clock.”
“What!” Biff exclaimed. “Then we’ve got to act fast. We’ve got to find Derek!” ”

“ It'll be pretty dull without Chet and Biff around to help us kill time."
"You can put in the hours thinking of Biff and me," consoled Chet. "At night you can just picture us sitting around our campfire away up the coast, and in the daytime you can imagine us speeding away out over the bounding main." He postured with one foot on the gunwale, "A sailor's life for me, my hearties! ”

“ That’s all.”
“You’re all right, Biff,” laughed Bobby, “but I guess we’ll call this a one-round affair, and I’ll take charge.”
“Don’t stop ’em!” cried Daly savagely, turning to Bobby. “Hand it to him, Biff. He’s a crook and an all-round sneak. He beat me out of this job by underhand means, and there ain’t a man in the place that ain’t tickled to death to see him get the beating that’s coming to him. Paste him, Biff!”
“Biff!” repeated Mr. Ripley, suddenly dropping his hands. “Biff who?”
“Mr. Biff Bates, the well-known and justly celebrated ex-champion middleweight,” announced Bobby with a grin. ”

“ Biff said, "until after the thugs have gone."
They were entering through a fancifully tiled archway as Biff spoke. Chandra extended a restraining hand as Biff turned toward an inner corner, where a battered stone railing marked a stairway leading to a floor below.
"Be careful where you lie low," warned Chandra. "These old places are alive with deadly cobras."
"But how can the monkeys live with the snakes?" ”

“ It had to be the road the black car had just turned down.
“Let’s figure our next move, Biff,” Charlie said. The two got back into the sports car.
66
“I think I know where we are. There used to be a big estate somewhere around here. It’s been closed up for some years. There’s one large house, a hacienda, and several smaller outbuildings. An ideal place to hide out, particularly if you wanted to hold someone prisoner. Let’s put our plotting machine to work for a few minutes.”
At first, Biff was all for barging right ahead, crashing right in and demanding of Dietz the whereabouts of Derek. ”

“ I’ll break you up in business! I’ll hire thugs to break every bone in your body!”
“Is that all?” inquired Biff complacently, and grabbed him as he started to run around the room in a wild hunt for an outlet. “Stand up here and put up a fight or I’ll punch you myself. I’ve been aching to do it for a year. That’s why I got Doc Willets to dope it out to you that you was dyin’ for training, and why I kept shifting your hour to when there was nobody here. Go to him, chum!”
Then ensued the strangest sparring match that the grinning and stealthily silent Bobby had ever seen. ”

“ This time Derek’s expression was even more startled than when the two boys had first met at the Miami airport.
70 CHAPTER XI
Biff Meets Crunch
Biff quickly pressed a forefinger against his lips. If Derek, startled as he was, made an outcry, any chance of freeing him would be gone.
Derek was seated on the edge of a small cot. The only other furniture in the room was a straight chair. Biff could see through a narrow opening into the second of the two rooms which made up the small stone house. The entrance to this house-prison must be in the other room, Biff figured. ”

“ He soon reached a point from where he could get a good view of the entire island. He could see Biff and Chet industriously exploring the shore lines.
A little distance away, in the snow beneath the trees, he caught sight of a line of fresh footprints.
He picked up the trail at once, and followed the marks in the snow.
They led him in and out among the trees, then veered and seemed to be directed toward the rocks.
“What am I thinking of?” said Frank, to himself. “I’m not following the man’s trail at all. I’m going back on it.” ”

“ After the first day's practice Neale and Biffy McFadden were jogging back to the dressing-room together.
"Great, isn't it?" grunted Biffy, rubbing his jersey sleeve over his sweaty forehead. "Looks like a job for either you or me."
"I'll have to step lively, if I get the job. Just you wait till I get some of the fat off me. I'm soft yet." He thought bitterly of time wasted on the hotel piazza.
"Soft? Hell!" cried Biffy. "All I'll say is I hope you never tackle me when you're hard—thought you'd slapped me with a piece of lead pipe just after I caught that punt." ”

“ They parted from him.
‘Now he’ll go and soak till he’s unconscious,’ said Biffen. ‘Poor fellow! Pity he ever earns anything at all. The workhouse would be better, I should think.’
‘No, no! Let a man drink himself to death rather. I have a horror of the workhouse. ”

“ He had lost the only girl he had ever loved, and you know what a man's like when that happens to him.'
'How was that, sir?'
'Apparently he fell in love with some girl on the boat going over to New York, and they parted at the Customs sheds, arranging to meet next day at her hotel. Well, you know what Biffy's like. He forgets his own name half the time. ”

“ I think they thought the girls were going to be fed or something. But Biffy paid no attention to them. He was pointing in a loony manner at one of the cages. I forget which it was, but the female inside wore a ruff, so it may have been Queen Elizabeth or Boadicea or someone of that period. She was rather a nice-looking girl, and she was staring at Biffy in much the same pop-eyed way as he was staring at her.
'Mabel!' yelled Biffy, going off in my ear like a bomb.
I can't say I was feeling my chirpiest. Drama is all very well, but I hate getting mixed up in it in a public spot ”

“ Scarcely a day passes without his having to sit on somebody's head and ring for the attendant to bring the strait-waistcoat; and his outlook on life has become so jaundiced through constant association with coves who are picking straws out of their hair that I was convinced that Biffy had merely got to press the bulb and nature would do the rest. ”

“ And, as Jasper truly said, only a concurrence of powerful testimonials could have compelled any number of people to affect an interest in this book. 'The first duty of a novelist is to tell a story:' the perpetual repetition of this phrase is a warning to all men who propose drawing from the life. Biffen only offered a slice of biography, and it was found to lack flavour.
He wrote to Mrs Reardon: 'I cannot thank you enough for this very kind letter about my book; I value it more than I should the praises of all the reviewers in existence. ”

“ These fellows who live in the country are apt to go in for fairly sizable clubs instead of the light canes which your well-dressed man about town considers suitable for metropolitan use; and down in Herefordshire, apparently, something in the nature of a knobkerrie is de rigueur. Biffy's first slosh smashed the glass all to a hash. Three more cleared the way for him to go into the cage without cutting himself. And, before the crowd had time to realize what a wonderful bob's-worth it was getting in exchange for its entrance fee, he was inside, engaging the girl in earnest conversation. ”

“ He has an enormous bald head, all the hair which ought to be on it seeming to have run into his eyebrows, and his eyes go through you like a couple of Death Rays.
'How are you, how are you, how are you?' I said, [Pg 135] overcoming a slight desire to leap backwards out of the window. 'Long time since we met, what?'
'Nevertheless, I remember you most distinctly, Mr Wooster.'
'That's fine,' I said. 'Old Biffy asked me to come and join you in mangling a bit of lunch.'
He waggled the eyebrows at me.
'Are you a friend of Charles Biffen?'
'Oh, rather. ”

“ The miners couldn’t give much play to their contempt before those pleasant gray eyes of Bob’s, which might inquire their meaning, and look into it. Men weren’t mind-readers in Bismo. They saw the steady eyes, the whimsical smile, but no one knew what was going on; not even Mort Cotton, who had punched cattle, skinned mules, and washed for gold with Bob Leadley for ten years; not even the Mexican woman and her daughter who brought Bart up. But it was all a matter of how you gave advice. Bismo found out gradually that Bob wasn’t set up very high in his idea of being a successful parent. ”