"Dan," she said, looking up, "you don't know what I've done for that man. I was getting along all right when I doubled with him; I was doing well--copping the cush right along. I was working under protection in Chi.; I gave it all up for him--"
She broke off suddenly and exclaimed irrelevantly:
"The tommy buster!"
Gibbs started.
"No," he protested, "not Curly!"
"Sure!" she sneered, turning away in disgust of his doubt.
"What made you stand for it?"
"Well," she temporized, forced to be just, "it was only once. I had rousted a goose for his poke--all alone too--" She spoke with the pride she had always had in her dexterity, and Gibbs suddenly recalled the fact that she had been the first person in all their traditions who could take a pocketbook from a man, "weed" and replace it without his being aware; the remembrance pleased him and his eyes lighted up.
"What's the matter?" she demanded suddenly.
"I was thinking of the time you turned the old trick, and at the come-back, when the bulls found the sucker's leather on him with the put-back, they booted him down the street; remember?"