"Then right off I sees where we has made a fatal mistake, and my heart dies within me and I jest plum collapses and folds up inside of myself like a concertina. And that explains," he concluded, "why you ain't seen me for going on the last eighteen months."
"Did they give you eighteen months for breaking into the delicatessen shop?" I asked.
Mr. Doolan fetched a long, deep, mournful sigh.
"No," he said simply, "they gave us eighteen months for breaking into the undertaker's next door."
CHAPTER X
A TALE OF WET DAYS
In the days before the hydrant-headed specter of Prohibition reared its head in the Sunny South I had this tale from a true Kentucky gentleman. As he gave it to me, so, reader, do I give it to you: