“My dear Arthur! Where you pick up such expressions I can’t think. Not from me.”

“Is that you, Jimmy? What in the name of——”

“Heavens! what are you kicking about? The night’s yet young. Arthur, touching that little arrangement we made—cracking that crib, you know. Are you listening? Have you any objection to my taking an assistant along with me? I don’t want to do anything contrary to our agreement, but there’s a young fellow here who’s anxious that I should let him come along and pick up a few hints. He’s a professional all right. Not in our class, of course, but quite a fair rough workman. He——Arthur! Arthur! These are harsh words! Then am I to understand you have no objection? Very well. Only don’t say later on that I didn’t play fair. Good night.”

He hung up the receiver and turned to Spike.

“Ready?”

“Ain’t youse goin’ to put on your gum-shoes, boss?”

Jimmy frowned reflectively, as if there was something in what this novice suggested. He went into the bedroom, and returned wearing a pair of thin patent leather shoes.

Spike coughed tentatively.

“Won’t youse need your gun?” he hazarded.

Jimmy gave a short laugh.

“I work with my brains, not guns,” he said. “Let us be going.”

There was a taxi-cab near by, as there always is in New York. Jimmy pushed Spike in.

The luxury of riding in a taxi-cab kept Spike dumb for several miles. At One Hundred and Fiftieth Street Jimmy stopped the cab and paid the driver, who took the money with that magnificently aloof air which characterizes the taxi-chauffeur. A lesser man might have displayed some curiosity about the ill-matched pair. The chauffeur, having lit a cigarette, drove off without any display of interest whatsoever. It might have been part of his ordinary duties to drive gentlemen in evening clothes and shock-headed youths in parti-coloured sweaters about the city at three o’clock in the morning.

“We will now,” said Jimmy, “stroll on and prospect. It 

 Prev. P 34/196 next