“On your way, boss!”
“–toxicology–”
“Search me!”
“–electricity and microscopy?”
“… Nine, ten. Dat’s de finish. I’m down an’ out.”
Jimmy shook his head, sadly.
“Give up burglary,” he said. “It’s not in your line. Better try
poultry-farming.”
Spike twiddled his glass, abashed.
“Now, I,” said Jimmy airily, “am thinking of breaking into a house
to-night.”
“Gee!” exclaimed Spike, his suspicions confirmed at last. “I t’ought
youse was in de game, boss. Sure, you’re de guy dat’s onto all de
curves. I t’ought so all along.”
“I should like to hear,” said Jimmy amusedly, as one who draws out
an intelligent child, “how you would set about burgling one of those
up-town villas. My own work has been on a somewhat larger scale and
on the other side of the Atlantic.”
“De odder side?”
“I have done as much in London, as anywhere else,” said Jimmy. “A
great town, London, full of opportunities for the fine worker. Did
you hear of the cracking of the New Asiatic Bank in Lombard Street?”
“No, boss,” whispered Spike. “Was dat you?”
Jimmy laughed.
“The police would like an answer to the same question,” he said,
self-consciously. “Perhaps, you heard nothing of the disappearance
of the Duchess of Havant’s diamonds?”
“Wasdat–?”
“The thief,” said Jimmy, flicking a speck of dust from his coat
sleeve, “was discovered to have used an oxy-acetylene blow-pipe.”
The rapturous intake of Spike’s breath was the only sound that broke
the silence. Through the smoke, his eyes could be seen slowly
widening.
“But about this villa,” said Jimmy. “I am always interested even in
the humblest sides of the profession. Now, tell me, supposing you
were going to break into a villa, what time of night would you do
it?”
“I always t’inks it’s best either late like dis or when de folks is
in at supper,” said Spike, respectfully.
Jimmy smiled a faint, patronizing smile, and nodded.
“Well, and what would you do?”
“I’d rubber around some to see isn’t dere a window open somewheres,”
said Spike, diffidently.
“And if there wasn’t?”
“I’d climb up de porch an’ into one of de bedrooms,” said Spike,
almost blushing. He felt like a boy reading his first attempts at
original poetry to an established critic. What would this master
cracksman, this polished wielder of the oxy-acetylene blow-pipe,
this expert in toxicology, microscopy and physics think of his
callow outpourings!
“How would you get into the bedroom?”
Spike hung his head.
“Bust de catch wit’ me jemmy,” he whispered, shamefacedly.
“Burst the catch with your jemmy?”
“It’s de only way I ever learned,” pleaded Spike.
The expert was silent. He seemed to be thinking. The other watched
his face, humbly.
“How would youse do it, boss?” he ventured timidly, at last.
“Eh?”
“How would youse do it?”
“Why, I’m not sure,” said the master, graciously, “whether your way
might not do in a case like that. It’s crude, of course, but with a
few changes it would do.”
“Gee, boss! Is dat right?” queried the astonished disciple.
“It would do,” said the master, frowning thoughtfully; “it would do
quite well–quite well!”
Spike drew a deep breath of joy and astonishment. That his methods
should meet with approval from such a mind…!
“Gee!” he whispered–as who would say, “I and Napoleon.”
CHAPTER VI
AN EXHIBITION PERFORMANCE
Cold reason may disapprove of wagers, but without a doubt there is
something joyous and lovable in the type of mind that rushes at the
least provocation into the making of them, something smacking of the
spacious days of the Regency. Nowadays, the spirit seems to have
deserted England. When Mr. Asquith became Premier of Great Britain,
no earnest forms were to be observed rolling peanuts along the
Strand with a toothpick. When Mr. Asquith is dethroned, it is
improbable that any Briton will allow his beard to remain unshaved
until the Liberal party returns to office. It is in the United
States that the wager has found a home. It is characteristic of some
minds to dash into a wager with the fearlessness of a soldier in a
forlorn hope, and, once in, to regard it almost as a sacred trust.
Some men never grow up out of the schoolboy spirit of “daring.”