Fellow who looks after everything, crowds the money on to the minister at the end of the ceremony, and then goes off and mayries the first bridesmaid, and lives happily ever."

Spike shook his head.

"I ain't got no use for gittin' married, boss."

"Spike, the misogynist! You wait, Spike. Some day, love will awake in your heart, and you'll start writing poetry."

"I'se not dat kind of mug, boss," protested the Bowery boy. "I ain't got no use fer goils. It's a mutt's game."

This was rank heresy. Jimmy laid down the razor from motives of prudence, and proceeded to lighten Spike's reprehensible darkness.

"Spike, you're an a.s.s," he said. "You don't know anything about it.

If you had any sense at all, you'd understand that the only thing worth doing in life is to get married. You bone-headed bachelors make me sick. Think what it would mean to you, having a wife. Think of going out on a cold winter's night to crack a crib, knowing that there would be a cup of hot soup waiting for you when you got back, and your slippers all warmed and comfortable. And then she'd sit on your knee, and you'd tell her how you shot the policeman, and you'd examine the swag together--! Why, I can't imagine anything cozier.

Perhaps there would be little Spikes running about the house. Can't you see them jumping with joy as you slid in through the window, and told the great news? 'Fahzer's killed a pleeceman!' cry the tiny, eager voices. Candy is served out all round in honor of the event.

Golden-haired little Jimmy Mullins, my G.o.d-son, gets a dime for having thrown a stone at a plain-clothes detective that afternoon.

All is joy and wholesome revelry. Take my word for it, Spike, there's nothing like domesticity."

"Dere was a goil once," said Spike, meditatively. "Only, I was never her steady. She married a cop."

"She wasn't worthy of you, Spike," said Jimmy, sympathetically. "A girl capable of going to the bad like that would never have done for you. You must pick some nice, sympathetic girl with a romantic admiration for your line of business. Meanwhile, let me finish shaving, or I shall be late for dinner. Great doings on to-night, Spike."

Spike became animated.

"Sure, boss I Dat's just what--"

"If you could collect all the blue blood that will be under this roof to-night, Spike, into one vat, you'd be able to start a dyeing-works. Don't try, though. They mightn't like it. By the way, have you seen anything more--of course, you have. What I mean is, have you talked at all with that valet man, the one you think is a detective?"

"Why, boss, dat's just--"

"I hope for his own sake he's a better performer than my old friend, Galer. That man is getting on my nerves, Spike. He pursues me like a smell-dog. I expect he's lurking out in the pa.s.sage now. Did you see him?"

"Did I! Boss! Why--"

Jimmy inspected Spike gravely.

"Spike," he said, "there's something on your mind. You're trying to say something. What is it? Out with it."

Spike's excitement vented itself in a rush of words.

"Gee, boss! There's bin doin's to-night fer fair. Me coco's still buzzin'. Sure t'ing! Why, say, when I was to Sir Tummas' dressin'-room dis afternoon--"

"What!"

"Surest t'ing you know. Just before de storm come on, when it was all as dark as could be. Well, I was--"

Jimmy interrupted.

"In Sir Thomas's dressing-room! What the--"

Spike looked somewhat embarra.s.sed. He grinned apologetically, and shuffled his feet.

"I've got dem, boss!" he said, with a smirk.

"Got them? Got what?"

"Dese."

Spike plunged a hand in a pocket, and drew forth in a glittering ma.s.s Lady Julia Blunt's rope of diamonds.

CHAPTER XXII

TWO OF A TRADE DISAGREE

"One hundred t'ousand plunks," murmured Spike, gazing lovingly at them. "I says to myself, de boss ain't got no time to be gittin'

after dem himself. He's too busy dese days wit' jollyin' along de swells. So, it's up to me, I says, 'cos de boss'll be tickled to deat', all right, all right, if we can git away wit' dem. So, I--"

Jimmy gave tongue with an energy that amazed his faithful follower.

The nightmare horror of the situation had affected him much as a 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, d.i.n.ky 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.'"