k about. You'll know to-morrow. I sha'n't be alive then,
Torchy."

"Ain't swallowed a buttonhook, have you?" says I.

Next he begins throwin' a fit about what's goin' to become of the missus
and the kid. Say, I've been in at two or three acts like this before,
and I gen'rally notice that at about such a stage they play that card,
the wife and kid. Your real tough citizen don't, nor your real
gent,--they shuts their mouths and takes what's comin' to 'em,--but Mr.
Weakback has a sudden rush of mem'ry about the folks at home, and
squeals like a pup with his tail shut in the door.

"Ah, say," says I, "cut it out! You ought to move up to Harlem and learn
to pound the pipes. You're a healthy plunger, you are, sneakin' bonds
out of the safe to stack up against a crooked game, and then playin' the
baby act when you lose out! Come now, ain't that the awful thing that's
happened to you?"

He couldn't have opened up freer if he'd been put through the third
degree. I gets the story of his life then, with a handkerchief
accomp'niment,--all about the house he's tryin' to buy through the
buildin' loan, and the second-hand bubble he wants to splurge on 'cause
the neighbors have got 'em, and how he was tipped off to this sure thing
in Blitzen by a party that had always been a friend of his but couldn't
get hold of the stuff to turn the trick himself. He put in all the fine
points, even to the way he came to have a chance at the safe.

"If I could only put them back!" says he, sighin'.

"What then?" says I. "Next time I s'pose you'd swipe the whole series,
wouldn't you?"

If you could have heard him tell how good he'd be you'd think practicin'
a little crooked work now and then was the only sure way to learn how to
keep straight.

"Piddie," says I, "I don't want to hurt your feelin's, but you act to me
like a weak sister. If I was to do what the case calls for, this thing
ought to go to the boss."

"Please don't, Torchy! Please don't!" says he, scrabblin' down on his
hands and knees.

"Nix on that!" says I. "This is no carpet-layin' bee. I'm no squealer,
anyway; besides, I had a little interview with Mrs. Piddie and the kid
this noon, and after seein' them I can't rub it in like you deserve.
What I've seen and heard I'm goin' to forget. Now sit up straight while
I break the news to you gentle. I went down there to-day, just as you
told me."

"Yes, I know," he groans, squirmin'.

"But I didn't like the looks of the joint;