Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/58

48 Bud to one side and tried to coax him to hitch up with a mail-pouch thief called Pawtucket Fatty, he shook his head on the strong-arm work. It was the same when Hot-Weather Harry, another porch-climber who'd side-stepped into yegg-work, wanted Bud to join him and work the can-opener on the Middle West post-offices. Bud came out flat against the offer. He later explained to me that it was rube work and all right for the rough-necks, though it wasn't until later that I learned that both Copperhead Kate and Hot-Weather Harry claimed that I was the reason for Bud Griswold growing chicken-hearted in his old age.

If this worried Bud he never opened his heart about it to me. He merely contended that he'd rather be a check-kiter, or a stone-getter, any day, than a soup-worker and a box-blower. For Bud didn't believe in force. He made it a practise not even to carry a gun. This, he pointed out, had saved him from a fall, dozens of times. He said no properly-trained supper-worker had any right to tote a "gat," which is the underworld word for an automatic. He didn't even work with a jimmy, when it came to forcing a side door, or getting a back window up. All he carried was a specially made cigar-lighter—which served him as a flash-