crewdriver.

"Now what, lieutenant?" demands Barry.

"S-s-s-h!" says I, mysterious. "We got to drill around until midnight."

"Why not at the Follies, then?" suggests Barry.

"Swell thought!" says I.

And for this brand of active service I couldn't have picked a better man
than Barry. From our box seats he points out the cute little squab with
the big eyes, third from the end, and even gets one of the soloists
singin' a patriotic chorus at us. On the strength of which Barry makes
two more trips down to the cafe. Not that he gets primed enough so you'd
notice it. Nothing like that. Only he grows more enthusiastic over the
idea of being useful in the great cause.

"Remember, lieutenant," says he as we drifts out with the midnight push,
"I'm under orders. Eh?"

"Sure thing," says I. "You're about to get 'em, too. Did you ever do
such a thing as steal a barber's pole?"

Barry couldn't remember that he ever had.

"Well," says I, "that's what you're goin' to do now."

"Which one?" asks Barry.

"Otto's," says I. "From the joint where we were just before dinner."

"Right, lieutenant," says Barry, givin' his salute.

"And listen," says I. "You're dead set on havin' that particular pole.
Understand? You want it bad. And after you get it you ain't goin' to let
anybody get it away from you, no matter what happens, until I give the
word. That's your cue."

"Trust me, lieutenant," says Barry, straightenin' up. "I shall stand by
the pole."

Sounds simple, don't it? But that's the way all us great minds work,
along lines like that. And the foolisher we look at the start the deeper
we're apt to be divin' after the plot of the piece. Don't miss that.
What's a bent hairpin in the mud to you? While to us--boy, page old Doc
Watson.

How many times, for instance, do you suppose you've walked past the
Hotel Northumberland? Yet did you ever notice that the barber shop
entrance was exactly twenty paces east on Umpteenth Street from the
corner of Broadway; that you go down three iron steps to a landin'
before you turn for the other 15; or that the barber pole has a gilt top
with blue stars in it, and is swung out on a single bracket with two
screws on each side? I points out all this to Barry as we strolls down
from the theater district.

"By jove!" says Barry. "Wonderful!"

"Ain't it?" says I. "And all done without a change of wig or a jab of
the needle. Now your part is easy. You simply drift down the side
street, step