back to the blotter!" says I. "Who gave you any license to make funny cracks on my Mrs. Leslie Carter disguise?"

We swapped a few more like that, while I sizes up Hinkey, tryin' to map out a way to brace him. But it was a losin' proposition. He has one of them eyes nailed to what I wanted to take away and the other trained on the door, and you could tell by the way he held his jaw that nothin' short of an earthquake would jar him loose.

It was too much for me. If it hadn't been that Mr. Robert had put it up to me so flat, I'd have quit then. But I couldn't lay down with just a look; so I takes a turn around into the passenger waitin' room, battin' my head for a new line.

I guess it was kind of second sight that steers me over into the corner where there is an A. D. T. branch. I wa'n't lookin' for anyone I knew, seein' it's been so long since I wore the cap; but who should I pipe off, sittin' on the call bench, but Hunch Leary! And, say, between the time I'd give him the nod to come out, and his askin' how it was I'd shook the red stripe, I'd framed up the whole scheme. First I goes over to the girl under the blue bell and rings up Mr. Robert.32

32

"Hello," says I, "this is Torchy."

"Good!" says he. "Have you got it?"

"Got nothin'!" says I. "You must think I'm a writ of habeas corpus. I want to know who was the gent that most likely tipped off your warden friend."

When I'd got that I asks the time of the next uptown boat, and makes a deal with one of them ferry hawks to back his chariot up near the express office door and be ready to make a swift move for the gangplank.

Then me and Hunchy fakes up this little billy ducks to Mr. Hinkey Tolliver, tellin' him to chase to the nearest 'phone and call up the gent that Mr. Robert had put me wise to.

It was worse'n playin' a three-ball combination for the side pocket, and I holds my breath while Hunch pokes his book at him and waits to see if there's any answer. Tolliver, he reads it over two or three times, first with one eye and then the other. One minute I thought he was goin', and the next he settles back like he'd made up his mind to balk. He squints at the burlap package, and then at the message, and all of a sudden he makes a break for the 'phone.

He hadn't begun movin' before I was up to 

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