Page:Love and Learn (1924).pdf/102

 he had 'em buffaloed, but it was different here! Before he'd been registered a week he fell right in line, filing his application to take me out, donating candy and flowers and stalling around the switchboard till the other girls were gnashing their teeth with envy. They said Thurston was just grand. I thought he was apple sauce, and from my actions he must have thought I was as cold as Nanook's nose. Without being able to put my finger on the reason, I just didn't like him. You've met people like that, haven't you?

One morning the newspapers are full of a big diamond robbery that baffles the local police. Jerry Murphy, moored at my board as usual, points to the headlines in a paper which, with the copper's instinct, he's carrying rolled up like a club.

"They'll never nail them babies," he says scornfully. "This is the softest slab in the world for a crook. When I think 'at I'm slavin' away keepin' law and order in this cave for a hundred and twenty bucks the month and a swell mob can go down in Maiden Lane and glom ninety grand for a few minutes' work, it's all I can do to keep honest!"

"What gives you the crazy idea that you're honest," I says, "when you're taking thirty dollars a week from this hotel for hanging around my switchboard all day? What a swell detective you are! All you've shown me since I've been here is that you got adenoids!"