Part 6 (1/2)

”But there wasn't no use arguin', and along we went, and about one o'clock we was standin' alongside Jerry's bed, where he was fast asleep.

He was a bachelor, and lived pretty much by himself. I give him a punch to waken him up, for we'd made up our minds that that was the way to work this job. It wouldn't pay us to go around huntin' for Jerry's money. He was such a sharp old fellow, it was six to four we'd never find it. He sat up in bed with a jump like a hop-toad, and looked first at one and then at the other of us. We both had masks on, and it wasn't puzzlin' to guess what we was there fur.

”'Jerry Hammond,' says I, speakin' rather rough and husky, 'we knows that you've got a lot o' money in this house, and we've come fur it. We mean business, and there's no use foolin'. You can give it to us quiet and easy, and keep a whole head on your shoulders, or we'll lay you out ready fur a wake and help ourselves to the funds; and now you pays your money and you can take your choice how you do it. There's nothin'

shabby about us, but we mean business. Don't we, pard?'--'That's so,'

says Putty.

”'Look here,' says Jerry, jest as cool as if he had been sittin' outside on his own curbstone, 'I know you two men and no mistake. You're Tommy Randall, and you're Putty Henderson, so you might as well take off them masks.'--'Which I am glad to do,' says I, 'for I hate 'em,' and I put mine in my pocket, and Putty he took off his.”

”Excuse me,” said Aunt Martha, interrupting at this point, ”but when Mr.

Hammond mentioned the name of Tommy Randall, to whom did he refer?”

”I can explain that, madam,” said the tall burglar, quickly. ”This man by his criminal course of life has got himself into a good many sc.r.a.pes, and is frequently obliged to change his name. Since I accidentally became acquainted with him he has had several aliases, and I think that he very often forgets that his real name is James Barlow.”

”That's so,” said the stout man, ”there never was a more correct person than this industrious and unfortunate man sittin' by me. I am dreadful forgetful, and sometimes I disremember what belongs to me and what don't. Names the same as other things.

”'Well, now, Jerry,' says I, 'you needn't think you're goin' to make anythin' by knowin' us. You've got to fork over your cash all the same, and if you think to make anything by peachin' on us after we've cleared out and left you peaceful in your bed, you're mistook so far as I'm concerned; for I've made the track clear to get out of this town before daybreak, and I don't know when I'll come back. This place is gettin' a little too hot for me, and you're my concludin' exercise.' Jerry he sat still for a minute, considerin.' He wasn't no fool, and he knowed that there wasn't no use gettin' scared, nor cussin', nor hollerin'. What's more, he knowed that we was there to get his money, and if he didn't fork it over he'd get himself laid out, and that was worse than losin'

money any day. 'Now, boys, says he, 'I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll make you an offer; a fair and square offer. What money I've got I'll divide even with you, each of us takin' a third, and I'll try to make up what I lose out of my next contract. Now nothin' could be no squarer than that.'--'How much money have you got, Jerry?' says I, 'that's the first thing to know.'--'I've got thirty-one hundred dollars even,' says he, 'and that will be one thousand and thirty-three dollars and thirty-three cents apiece. I've got bills to pay to-morrow for lumber and bricks, and my third will pay 'em. If I don't I'll go to pieces. You don't want to see me break up business, do you?'--'Now, Jerry,' says I, 'that won't do. You haven't got enough to divide into three parts. Putty and me agree to go halves with what we get out of you, and when I lay out a piece of business I don't make no changes. Half of that money is for me, and half is for Putty. So just hand it out, and don't let's have no more jabberin'.'

”Jerry he looked at me pretty hard, and then says he: 'You're about the close-fisted and meanest man I ever met with. Here I offer you a third part of my money, and all you've got to do is to take it and go away peaceable. I'd be willin' to bet two to one that it's more than you expected to get, and yet you are not satisfied; now, I'll be hanged if I'm going to do business with you.'--'You can be hanged if you like,'

says I, 'but you'll do the business all the same.'--'No, I won't,' says he, and he turns to Putty Henderson. 'Now, Putty,' says he, 'you've got a pile more sense that this pal of yourn, and I'm goin' to see if I can't do business with you. Now, you and me together can lick this Tommy Randall just as easy as not, and if you'll help me do it I'll not only divide the money with you, but I'll give you fifty dollars extra, so that instead of fifteen hundred and fifty dollars--that's all he'd given you, if he didn't cheat you--you'll have sixteen hundred, and I'll have fifteen hundred instead of the thousand and thirty-three dollars which I would have had left if my first offer had been took. So, Putty, what do you say to that?' Now, Putty, he must have been a little sore with me on account of the arguments we'd had about dividin', and he was mighty glad besides to get the chance of makin' fifty dollars extry, and so he said it was all right, and he'd agree. Then I thought it was about time for me to take in some of my sail, and says I: 'Jerry, that's a pretty good joke, and you can take my hat as soon as I get a new one, but of course I don't mean to be hard on you, and if you really have bills to pay to-morrow I'll take a third, and Putty'll take another, and we'll go away peaceful.'--'No, you won't,' sings out Jerry, and with that he jumps out of bed right at me, and Putty Henderson he comes at me from the other side, and, between the two, they gave me the worst lickin' I ever got in my born days, and then they dragged me down stairs and kicked me out the front door, and I had hardly time to pick myself up before I saw a policeman about a block off, and if he hadn't been a fat one he'd had me sure. It wouldn't have been pleasant, for I was a good deal wanted about that time.

”So you see, ladies and gents, that it's true what I said,--things don't always go right in our line of business no more than any other one.”

”I think you were served exactly right,” said Aunt Martha; ”and I wonder such an experience did not induce you to reform.”

”It did, ma'am, it did,” said the burglar. ”I made a vow that night that if ever again I had to call in any one to help me in business of that kind I wouldn't go pards with him. I'd pay him so much for the job, and I'd take the risks, and I've stuck to it.

”But even that don't always work. Luck sometimes goes ag'in' a man, even when he's working by himself. I remember a thing of that kind that was beastly hard on me. A gentleman employed me to steal his daughter.”

”What!” exclaimed my wife and Aunt Martha. ”Steal his own daughter! What do you mean by that?”

”That's what it was,” said the stout burglar; ”no more nor less. I was recommended to the gent as a reliable party for that sort of thing, and I met him to talk it over, and then he told me just how the case stood.

He and his wife were separated, and the daughter, about eleven years old, had been given to her by the court, and she put it into a boardin'

school, and the gent he was goin' to Europe, and he wanted to get the little gal and take her with him. He tried to get her once, but it slipped up, and so there wasn't no good in his showin' hisself at the school any more, which was in the country, and he knowed that if he expected to get the gal he'd have to hire a professional to attend to it.

”Now, when I heard what he had to say, I put on the strictly pious, and, says I, 'that's a pretty bad thing you're askin' me to do, sir, to carry away a little gal from its lovin' mother, and more 'an that, to take it from a school where it's gettin' all the benefits of eddication.'--'Eddication,' says he; 'that's all stuff. What eddication the gal gets at a school like that isn't worth a row of pins, and when they go away they don't know nothin' useful, nor even anything tip-top ornamental. All they've learned is the pianer and higher mathematics. As for anythin' useful, they're nowhere. There isn't one of them could bound New Jersey or tell you when Was.h.i.+ngton crossed the Delaware.'--'That may be, sir,' says I, 'but them higher branches comes useful. If Was.h.i.+ngton really did cross the Delaware, your little gal could ask somebody when it was, but she couldn't ask 'em how the pianer was played, nor what the whole multiplication table came to added up.

Them things she'd have to learn how to do for herself. I give you my word, sir, I couldn't take a little gal from a school, where she was gettin' a number one eddication, silver forks and towels extry.' The gent looked pretty glum, for he was to sail the next day, and if I didn't do the job for him he didn't know who would, and he said that he was sorry to see that I was goin' back on him after the recommend I'd had, and I said that I wouldn't go back on him if it wasn't for my conscience. I was ready to do any common piece of business, but this stealin' away little gals from lovin' mothers was a leetle too much for me. 'Well,' says he, 'there ain't no time to be lost, and how much more will satisfy your conscience?' When I said a hundred dollars, we struck the bargain.

”Well, we cut and dried that business pretty straight. I took a cab and went out to the school, and the gent he got the key of a house that was to let about three miles from the school, and he was to stay there and look at that empty house until I brought him the gal, when he was to pay me and take her away. I'd like to have had more time, so that I could go out and see how the land laid, but there wasn't no more time, and I had to do the best I could. The gent told me they all went a walkin' every afternoon, and that if I laid low that would be the best time to get her, and I must just fetch her along, no matter who hollered.

”I didn't know exactly how I was going to manage it, but I took along with me a big bag that was made for the conveyance of an extinct millionaire, but which had never been used, owin' to beforehand arrangements which had been made with the party's family.

”I left the cab behind a bit of woods, not far from the school, and then I laid low, and pretty soon I seed 'em all coming out, in a double line, with the teacher behind 'em, for a walk. I had a description of the little gal as was wanted, and as they come nearer I made her out easy.

She was the only real light-haired one in the lot. I hid behind some bushes in the side of the road, and when they come up, and the light-haired little gal was just opposite to me, I jumped out of the bushes and made a dash at her. Whoop! what a row there was in one second! Such a screamin' and screechin' of gals, such a pilin' on top each other, and the teacher on top the whole of 'em, bangin' with her umbrella; they pulled at the gal and they pulled at me, an' they yelled and they howled, and I never was in such a row and hope I never shall be again, and I grabbed that girl by her frock, and I tumbled some over one way and some another, and I got the umbrella over my head, but I didn't mind it, and I clapped that bag over the little gal, and I jerked, up her feet and let her slip into it, and then I took her up like a bag of meal, and put across the field, with the whole kit and boodle after me.

But I guess most of 'em must have tumbled down in hysterics, judgin'

from the screechin', and I got up to the cab and away we went. Well, when we got to the house where I was to meet the gent, he began straight off to blow at me. 'What do you mean,' he yelled, 'bringin' my daughter in a bag?'--'It's the only way to do it, sir,' says I; 'they can't holler and they can't kick, and people pa.s.sin' by don't know what you've got,' and so sayin' I untied the strings, put the little gal on her feet, and pulled off the bag, and then I'd be hanged if I ever saw a man so ragin' mad as he was. 'What do I want with that gal?' he cried; 'that's not my daughter. That girl's hair is as black as a coal, and she's a Jew besides.' As soon as I sot my eyes on the little varmint it come over me that I got the thing crooked, and in the scrimmage I let go of the right gal and grabbed another.