“Did you get back your watch?”
“How could I get it back?” peevishly. “No, I don't get back me watch. All the same, I'll lay for them babies. Some day I'll get 'em right, an' trim 'em to the queen's taste.”
My friend, leading conversation in his specious Central Office way, spoke of Ike the Blood's iron fame, and slanted talk in that direction.
“Ike can certainly go some!” observed Slimmy meditatively. “Take it from me, there ain't any of 'em, even th' toughest ever, wants his game.” Turning to Whitey: “Don't youse remember, Whitey, when he tears into Humpty Jackson an' two of his mob, over in Thirteenth Street, that time? There's nothin' to it! Ike simply makes 'em jump t'rough a hoop! Every lobster of 'em has his rod wit' him, too.”
“They wouldn't have had the nerve to fire 'em if they'd pulled 'em,” sneered Whitey. “Ike'd have made 'em eat th' guttaperchy all off th' handles, too. Say, I don't t'ink much of that Gas House fleet. They talk strong; but they don't bring home th' goods, see!”
It appeared that, in spite of his sanguinary title, Ike the Blood had never killed his man.
“He's tried,” explained Slimmy, who felt as though the absent one, in his blood-guiltlessness, required defense; “but he all th' time misses. Ike's th' woist shot wit' a rod in th' woild.”
“Sure, Mike!”—from Whitey Dutch, his nose in his drink; “he couldn't hit th' Singer Buildin'.” '“How does he make his money?” I asked.
“Loft worker,” broke in my friend.
The remark was calculated to explode the others into fresh confidences.