Telephone: "Are you sure it's a burglar, or is it just a noise somewhere?"

Smilk: "It's a burglar. He's got me covered."

Telephone: "What's that?"

Smilk: "I say, I've got him covered. Hurry up or he'll blow my head off--"

Telephone: "Say, what IS this? Get back to bed, you. You're drunk."

Smilk: "I'm as sober as you are. Can't you get me straight? I tell you I beat his head off. He's down and out,--but---"

Telephone: "All right. We'll have someone there in a few minutes.

Did you say Yullup?"

Smilk: "No. I said hurry up."

CHAPTER TWO

"The thing that's troubling me now," said Mr. Yollop, as Smilk hung up the receiver and twisted his head slightly to peek out of the corner of his eye, "is how to get hold of my slippers. You've no idea how cold this floor is."

"If it's half as cold as the sweat I'm---"

"We're likely to have a long wait," went on the other, frowning. "It will probably take the police a couple of hours to find this building, with absolutely no clue except the number and the name of the street."

"I'll tell you what you might do, Mr. Scollop, seein' as you won't trust me to go in and find your slippers for you. Why don't you sit on your feet? Take that big arm chair over there and--"

"Splendid! By jove, Ca.s.sius, you are an uncommonly clever chap. I'll do it. And then, when the police arrive, we'll have something for them to do. We'll let them see if they can find my slippers. That ought to be really quite interesting."

"There's something about you," said Mr. Smilk, not without a touch of admiration in his voice, "that I simply can't help liking."

"That's what the wolf said to Little Red Riding-Hood, if I remember correctly. However, I thank you, Ca.s.sius. In spite of the thump I gave you and the disgusting way in which I treated you, a visitor in my own house, you express a liking for me. It is most gratifying.

Still, for the time being, I believe we can be much better friends if I keep this pistol pointed at you. Now we 'll do a little maneuvering. You may remain seated where you are. However, I must ask you to pull out the two lower drawers in the desk,--one on either side of where your knees go. You will find them quite empty and fairly commodious. Now, put your right foot in the drawer on this side and your left foot in the other one--yes, I know it's quite a stretch, but I dare say you can manage it. Sort of recalls the old days when evil-doers were put in the stocks, doesn't it?

They seem to be quite a snug fit, don't they? If it is as difficult for you to extricate your feet from those drawers as it was to insert them, I fancy I'm pretty safe from a sudden and impulsive dash in my direction. Rather bright idea of mine, eh?"

"I'm beginnin' to change my opinion of you," announced Mr. Smilk.

Mr. Yollop pushed a big unholstered library chair up to the opposite side of the desk and, after several awkward attempts, succeeded in sitting down, tailor fashion, with his feet neatly tucked away beneath him.

"I wasn't quite sure I could do it," said he, rather proudly. "I suppose my feet will go to sleep in a very short time, but I am a.s.suming, Ca.s.sius, that you are too much of a gentleman to attack a man whose feet are asleep."

"I wouldn't even attack you if they were snoring," said Ca.s.sius, grinning in spite of himself. "Say, this certainly beats anything I've ever come up against. If one of my pals was to happen to look in here right now and see me with my feet in these drawers and you squattin' on yours,--well, I can't help laughin' myself, and G.o.d knows I hate to."

"You were saying a little while ago," said Mr. Yollop, shifting his position slightly, "that you rather fancy the idea of being arrested. Isn't that a little quixotic, Mr. Smilk?"

"Huh?"

"I mean to say, do you expect me to believe you when you say you relish being arrested?"

"I don't care a whoop whether you believe it or not. It's true."

"Have you no fear of the law?"

"Bless your heart, sir, I don't know how I'd keep body and soul together if it wasn't for the law. If people would only let the law alone, I'd be one of the happiest guys on earth. But, d.a.m.n 'em, they won't let it alone. First, they put their heads together and frame up this blasted parole game on us. Just about the time we begin to think we're comfortably settled up the river, 'long comes some doggone home-wrecker and gets us out on parole. Then we got to go to work and begin all over again. Sometimes, the way things are nowadays, it takes months to get back into the pen again. We got to live, ain't we? We got to eat, ain't we? Well, there you are. Why can't they leave us alone instead of drivin' us out into a cold, unfeelin' world where we got to either steal or starve to death?

There wouldn't be one tenth as much stealin' and murderin' as there is if they didn't force us into it. Why, doggone it, I've seen some of the most cruel and pitiful sights you ever heard of up there at Sing Sing. Fellers leadin' a perfectly honest life suddenly chucked out into a world full of vice and iniquity and forced--absolutely forced,--into a life of crime. There they were, livin' a quiet, peaceful life, harmin' n.o.body, and bing! they wake up some mornin'

and find themselves homeless. Do you realize what that means, Mr.

Strumpet? It means--"

"Yollop, if you please."

"It means they got to go out and slug some innocent citizen, some poor guy that had nothing whatever to do with drivin' them out, and then if they happen to be caught they got to go through with all the uncertainty of a trial by jury, never knowin' but what some pin-headed juror will stick out for acquittal and make it necessary to go through with it all over again. And more than that, they got to listen to the testimony of a lot of policemen, and their own derned fool lawyers, tryin' to deprive them of their bread and b.u.t.ter, and the judge's instructions that n.o.body pays any attention to except the shorthand reporter,--and them just settin' there sort of helpless and not even able to say a word in their own behalf because the law says they're innocent till they're proved guilty,--why, I tell you, Mr. Dewlap, it's heart-breakin'. And all because some weak-minded smart aleck gets them paroled. As I was sayin', the law's all right if it wasn't for the people that abuse it."

"This is most interesting," said Mr. Yollop. "I've never quite understood why ninety per cent of the paroled convicts go back to the penitentiary so soon after they've been liberated."

"Of course," explained Mr. Smilk, "there are a few that don't get back. That's because, in their anxiety to make good, they get killed by some inexperienced policeman who catches 'em comin' out of somebody's window or--"

"By the way, Ca.s.sius, let me interrupt you. Will you have a cigar?

Nice, pleasant way to pa.s.s an hour or two--beg pardon?"

"I was only sayin', if you don't mind I'll take one of these cigarettes. Cigars are a little too heavy for me."

"I have some very light grade domestic--"

"I don't mean in quality. I mean in weight. What's the sense of wastin' a lot of strength holding a cigar in your mouth when it requires no effort at all to smoke a cigarette? Why, I got it all figured out scientifically. With the same amount of energy you expend in smokin' one cigar you could smoke between thirty and forty cigarettes, and being sort of gradual, you wouldn't begin to feel half as fatigued as if you--"

"Did I understand you to say 'scientifically', or was it satirically?"

"I'm tryin' to use common, every-day words, Mr. Shallop," said Mr.

Smilk, with dignity, "and I wish you'd do the same."

"Ahem! Well, light up, Ca.s.sius. I think I'll smoke a cigar. When you get through with the matches, push 'em over this way, will you? Help yourself to those chocolate creams. There's a pound box of them at your elbow, Ca.s.sius. I eat a great many. They're supposed to be fattening. Help yourself." After lighting his cigar Mr. Yollop inquired: "By the way, since you speak so feelingly I gather that you are a paroled convict."

"That's what I am. And the worst of it is, it ain't my first offense. I mean it ain't the first time I've been paroled. To begin with, when I was somewhat younger than I am now, I was twice turned loose by judges on what they call 'suspended sentences.' Then I was sent up for two years for stealin' something or other,--I forgot just what it was. I served my time and a little later on went up again for three years for holdin' up a man over in Brooklyn. Well, I got paroled out inside of two years, and for nearly six months I had to report to the police ever' so often. Every time I reported I had my pockets full of loot I'd snitched durin' the month, stuff the bulls were lookin' for in every p.a.w.n-shop in town, but to save my soul I couldn't somehow manage to get myself caught with the goods on me. Say, I'd give two years off of my next sentence if I could cross my legs for five or ten minutes. This is gettin' worse and worse all the--"

"You might try putting your left foot in the right hand drawer and your right foot in the other one," suggested Mr. Yollop.

Mr. Smilk stared. "I've seen a lot of kidders in my time, but you certainly got 'em all skinned to death," said he.

Mr. Yollop puffed reflectively for awhile, pondering the situation.

"Well, suppose you remove one foot at a time, Ca.s.sius. As soon it is fairly well rested, put it back again and then take the other one out for a spell,--and so on. Half a loaf is better than no loaf at all."