“Oh, you go to blazes!” he says. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, I do,” I says. “I know well enough. I’m sent after Clancy, the green goods man, and you’re the very fellow, but if you’ll jest keep your shirt on we may fix the thing up.”
“Say, young feller,” he whispered, catching my arm, “say, I ain’t Clancy. Clancy’s a friend of mine, but if they’re onto our racket mebbe we might fix it up together for him.”
“Of course, if you’re only reasonable,” I says.
“Oh, I’m the most reasonablest feller you ever seen,” he says, “if you only rub me the right way. Let’s come and have a drink. I seen you watching me back there, and I know’d you was a detective. I know’d, too, that you was one of the sensible kind.”
Well, we went and had a drink—in fact we had three or four.
“Are the police onto us?” he says.
“They are,” says I. “If they wasn’t, why would I be here? They know all about you, and I advise you as a friend to change your quarters at once.”
“To-day?” he says, looking kind of scared like.