Page:The Gentle Grafter (1908).djvu/153

 that made Phœbe Snow’s job look like a chimney-sweep’s.

“‘Fall off?’ says I.

“‘Nunk,’ says he. ‘Got off. Arrived at my destination. What town is this?’

“‘Haven’t looked it up on the map yet,’ says I. ‘I got in about five minutes before you did. How does it strike you?’

“‘Hard,’ says he, twisting one of his arms around. ‘I believe that shoulder—no, it’s all right.’

“He stoops over to brush the dust off his clothes, when out of his pocket drops a fine, nine-inch burglar’s steel jimmy. He picks it up and looks at me sharp, and then grins and holds out his hand.

“‘Brother,’ says he, ‘greetings. Didn’t I see you in Southern Missouri last summer selling colored sand at half-a-dollar a teaspoonful to put into lamps to keep the oil from exploding?’

“‘Oil,’ says I, ‘never explodes. It’s the gas that forms that explodes.’ But I shakes hands with him, anyway.

“‘My name’s Bill Bassett,’ says he to me, ‘and if you’ll call it professional pride instead of conceit, I’ll inform you that you have the pleasure of meeting the best burglar that ever set a gum-shoe on ground drained by the Mississippi River’ 141