I gave a roster of acquaintances that made his eyes glisten.
“Oh, then, you’re all right!” he cried, slapping my knee. “In my business a fellow has to try the ice before he slides out too far. I’m coming right across to you.” He waved his hand to indicate his establishment. “This show is only a hinkumginny, you know!”
“I thought so,” I said, calmly. I hadn’t the least idea what he meant, but I knew that one needed to act wise with wise gentlemen.
“We run the gazara game and phrenology.”
I nodded and winked an eye as if I had been quite sure of that fact right along.
He scratched a few figures on a wisp of paper and pushed it to me across the desk-slide on which he had set out the whisky-glasses.
“That’s the split,” he said, grinning. Still it was all Greek to me.
“I know places doing half our business and paying twice as much—and every once in a while having to settle a squeal, at that! But I’ve got a cousin at headquarters—see? Nothing to it! Now you can understand what a sweet little pudding you’re pulling alongside of.”
I was wishing I could understand better, though I was developing a dim notion that he was talking about money paid for protection from the law. He pulled back the paper and tore it up.
“Only fifty a week,” he said; “it’s nothing. I’m thinking of throwing in another twenty-five without their asking. It beats laying up treasures in heaven!”