sudden blow in the parts about the waistcoat might have done. But,
now, as Spike would have said, he caught up with his breath. The
smirk faded slowly from the other's face as he listened. Not even in
the Bowery, full as it was of candid friends, had he listened to
such a trenchant summing-up of his mental and moral deficiencies.
'Boss!' he protested.
'That's just a sketchy outline,' said Jimmy, pausing for breath. 'I
can't do you justice impromptu like this--you're too vast and
overwhelming.'
'But, boss, what's eatin' you? Ain't youse tickled?'
'Tickled!' Jimmy sawed the air. 'Tickled! You lunatic! Can't you see
what you've done?'
'I've got dem,' said Spike, whose mind was not readily receptive of
new ideas. It seemed to him that Jimmy missed the main point.
'Didn't I tell you there was nothing doing when you wanted to take
those things the other day?'
Spike's face cleared. As he had suspected, Jimmy had missed the
point.
'Why, say, boss, yes. Sure! But dose was little, dinky t'ings. Of
course, youse wouldn't stand fer swipin' chicken-feed like dem. But
dese is different. Dese di'monds is boids. It's one hundred t'ousand
plunks fer dese.'
'Spike,' said Jimmy with painful calm.
'Huh?'
'Will you listen for a moment?'
'Sure.'
'I know it's practically hopeless. To get an idea into your head,
one wants a proper outfit--drills, blasting-powder, and so on. But
there's just a chance, perhaps, if I talk slowly. Has it occurred to
you, Spike, my bonny, blue-eyed Spike, that every other man, more or
less, in this stately home of England, is a detective who has
probably received instructions to watch you like a lynx? Do you
imagine that your blameless past is a sufficient safeguard? I
suppose you think that these detectives will say to themselves,
'Now, whom shall we suspect? We must leave out Spike Mullins, of
course, because he naturally wouldn't dream of doing such a thing.
It can't be dear old Spike who's got the stuff.''
'But, boss,' interposed Spike brightly, 'I ain't! Dat's right. I
ain't got it. Youse has!'
Jimmy looked at the speaker with admiration. After all, there was a
breezy delirium about Spike's methods of thought that was rather
stimulating when you got used to it. The worst of it was that it did
not fit in with practical, everyday life. Under different
conditions--say, during convivial evenings at Bloomingdale--he could
imagine the Bowery boy being a charming companion. How pleasantly,
for instance, such remarks as that last would while away the
monotony of a padded cell!
'But, laddie,' he said with steely affection, 'listen once more.
Reflect! Ponder! Does it not seep into your consciousness that we
are, as it were, subtly connected in this house in the minds of
