“He looked at me and smiled. ‘Better cough up, eh?’
“‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Nobody to identify me, so make it cash.’
“And cash it was made, thirty plunks (a plunk is a dollar, my dear Anak), and I pulled my freight... eh?—oh, departed.
“‘Pale youth,’ I said to Cerberus, ‘I am bounced.’ (He grinned with pallid joy.) ‘And in token of the sincere esteem I bear you, receive this little—’ (His eyes flushed and he threw up one hand, swiftly, to guard his head from the expected blow)—‘this little memento.’
“I had intended to slip a fiver into his hand, but for all his surprise, he was too quick for me.
“‘Aw, keep yer dirt,’ he snarled.
“‘I like you still better,’ I said, adding a second fiver. ‘You grow perfect. But you must take it.’
“He backed away growling, but I caught him round the neck, roughed what little wind he had out of him, and left him doubled up with the two fives in his pocket. But hardly had the elevator started, when the two coins tinkled on the roof and fell down between the car and the shaft. As luck had it, the door was not closed, and I put out my hand and caught them. The elevator boy’s eyes bulged.
“‘It’s a way I have,’ I said, pocketing them.
“‘Some bloke’s dropped ‘em down the shaft,’ he whispered, awed by the circumstance.