_He winks solemnly._) Well, Jerry, my boy,
here's your work cut out for you; but if you took one-nine-five for that
ere little two hundred you'd be a disgrace to the profession.

TABLEAU III

MOTHER CLARKE'S

_The Stage represents a room of coarse and sordid appearance: settles,
spittoons, etc.; sanded floor. A large table at back, where AINSLIE,
HAMILTON, and others are playing cards and quarrelling. In front, L.
and R., smaller tables, at one of which are BRODIE and MOORE,
drinking. MRS. CLARKE and women serving._

SCENE I

MOORE. You've got the devil's own luck, Deacon, that's what you've got.

BRODIE. Luck! Don't talk of luck to a man like me! Why not say I've the
devil's own judgment? Men of my stamp don't risk--they plan, Badger;
they plan, and leave chance to such cattle as you (and Jingling Geordie.
They make opportunities before they take them).

MOORE. You're artful, ain't you?

BRODIE. Should I be here else? When I leave my house I leave an _alibi_
behind me. I'm ill--ill with a jumping headache, and the fiend's own
temper. I'm sick in bed this minute, and they're all going about with
the fear of death on them lest they should disturb the poor sick Deacon.
(My bedroom door is barred and bolted like the bank--you remember!--and
all the while the window's open, and the Deacon's over the hills and far
away. What do you think of me?)

MOORE. I've seen your sort before, I have.

BRODIE. Not you. As for Leslie's----

MOORE. That was a nick above you.

BRODIE. Ay was it. He wellnigh took me red-handed; and that was better
luck than I deserved. If I'd not been drunk and in my tantrums, you'd
never have got my hand within a thousand years of such a job.

MOORE. Why not? You're the King of the Cracksmen, ain't you?

BRODIE. Why not! He asks me why not! Gods what a brain it is! Hark ye,
Badger, it's all very well to be King of the Cracksmen, as you call it;
but however respectable he may have the misfortune to be, one's friend
is one's friend, and as such must be severely let alone. What! shall
there be no more honour among thieves than there is honesty among
politicians? Why, man, if under heaven there were but one poor lock
unpicked, and that the lock of one whose claret you've drunk, and who
has babbled of woman across your own mahogany--that lock, sir, were
entirely sacred. Sacred as the Kirk of Scotland; sacred as King George
upon his throne; sacred as the memory of Bruce and Ba