‘You bet your life! And when you want help you know the right place to come. Tony B won’t see you left, eh?’
‘I know that. You’re not as bad as you look.’
The other winked slowly.
‘And what’s little Albert’s trouble this time?’ he asked.
‘Why this,’ Tanner answered, taking out his two little boxes and shaking the cigarette ends on to the table. ‘I want to know what kind of cigarettes these are, and when they were smoked.’
‘H’m. Think I’m a blooming crystal-gazer, do you? Or one of those Zancigs—what do you call ’em?’
As he spoke he was examining the ends with a strong glass. Then he smelt them, drew out a shred of tobacco from each and tasted it, and finally picked them up and took them out of the room.
‘Sit tight, Albert,’ he remarked as he left, ‘and keep your little hands out of mischief till daddy comes back.’
In a few minutes he re-entered and laid the ends down on the table with beside them a whole cigarette of a dark yellow colour.
‘There you are, sonny,’ he announced. ‘All chips of the old block, those are.’