“‘Look you, boys,’ said this old rascal one day, at a conference held at a place called Massette,’you scour the plain, and you work well enough sometimes. You can batter a door in, and garotte a fellow in pretty good style. But this is anybody’s work.
“‘You don’t understand the clean trick—the tender licks.
“‘When you have “quieted” a customer, you break open his chests and his cupboards expecting to find the shiners.
“‘But the yellow boys are not always kept in such places.
“‘Some shabby wretches hide their paltry money where the devil himself could not find it.
“‘You get nothing, you only lose your time, and find you have worked merely for the glory of it.
“‘That’s not the way.’
“‘Well, what would you do?’ I asked.
“‘What would I do, boys, if I had my youth again?
“‘This is what I would do,’ replied the old rat, becoming quite animated.