"So, first of all, I join a rubberneck crowd in one of the carryalls with a megaphone guy in charge. And I ride around all day. I got kind of nervous owing to the many coppers we kept passing and exchanging courtesies with. But I stuck all day, knowing that no sleuth was going looking for Dapper Pete on a rubberneck wagon.
"Well, then I spent three days in the Field Museum, eyeing the exhibits. Can you beat it? I walk around and walk around rubbering at mummies and bones and—well, I ain't kiddin', but they was among the three most interesting days I ever put in. And I felt pretty good, too, knowin' that no copper would be thinking of Dapper Pete as being in the museums.
"Then after that I went to the zoo and, rubbered at the animals and birds. And I sat in the park and watched comical ball games and golf games and the like. And then I went on some of those boats that run between no place and nowhere—you get on at a pier and ride for a half hour and get off at a pier and have to call a taxi in order to find your way back to anywhere. You get me?
"I'm tellin' you all this," said Dapper Pete cautiously, "with no reference to the charges involved and for which I am pinched and incarcerated for, see? But I thought you might make a story out of the way a guy like me with all my experience dogin' coppers can play himself for a sucker.
"Well, pretty soon I pretty near run out of rube spots to take in. And then I think suddenly of the observation towers like on the Masonic Temple and the Wrigley Building. I headed for them right away, figuring to take a sandwich or so along and spend the day leisurely giving the city the once over from my eerie perch.
"And when I come home that night and told my friends about it they was all excited. They all agreed that I had made the discovery of the age and all claimed to feel sorry they wasn't hiding out from the coppers, just for the sake of bein' able to lay low on top of a loop building. It does sound pretty good, even now.
"I was on my fifth day and was just walking in on the Masonic Temple observation platform when things began to happen. You know how the city looks from high up. Like a lot of toys crawling around. And it's nice and cool and on the whole as good a place to lay low in as you want. And there's always kind of comical company, see? Rubes on their honeymoon and sightseers and old maids and finicky old parties afraid of fallin' off, and gals and their Johns lookin' for some quiet place to spoon."
* * * * *
Dapper Pete sighed in memory.
"I am sitting there nibbling a sandwich," he went on, "when a hick comes along and looks at me."