"Where is my wandering boy tonight?"     

       "Waiter! What's yours, Jimmy?"     

       Jimmy dropped into a seat, and yawned.     

       "Well," he said, "how goes it? Hullo, Raikes! Weren't you at 'Love, the Cracksman'? I thought I saw you. Hullo, Arthur! Congratulate you. You spoke your piece nicely."     

       "Thanks," said Mifflin. "We were just talking about you, Jimmy. You came on the Lusitania, I suppose?"     

       "She didn't break the record this time," said Sutton.     

       A somewhat pensive look came into Jimmy's eyes.     

       "She came much too quick for me," he said. "I don't see why they want to rip along at that pace," he went on, hurriedly. "I like to have a chance of enjoying the sea-air."     

       "I know that sea-air," murmured Mifflin.     

       Jimmy looked up quickly.     

       "What are you babbling about, Arthur?"     

       "I said nothing," replied Mifflin, suavely.     

       "What did you think of the show tonight, Jimmy?" asked Raikes.     

       "I liked it. Arthur was fine. I can't make out, though, why all this incense is being burned at the feet of the cracksman. To judge by some of the plays they produce now, you'd think that a man had only to be a successful burglar to become a national hero. One of these days, we shall have Arthur playing Charles Peace to a cheering house."     

       "It is the tribute," said Mifflin, "that bone-headedness pays to brains. It takes brains to be a successful cracksman. Unless the gray matter is surging about in your cerebrum, as in mine, you can't hope—"     

       Jimmy leaned back in his chair, and spoke calmly but with decision.     

       "Any man of ordinary intelligence," he said, "could break into a house."     

       Mifflin jumped up and began to gesticulate. This was heresy.     

 Prev. P 5/207 next