Every man to his own kind.
That’s the best rule a detective has to follow.
If it is hard to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, it is equally hard to make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse.
I tried to make a tough out of Sam Kean, and I failed.
Why, Dave, who had secretly joined the sewer gang a week before Sam got ready to begin, told me that they saw through Sam from the very start.
“He couldn’t fool ’em, Mr. Brady,” he said. “I was awful sorry I couldn’t warn him, and I would have done so if I’d knowed he was going to come that night, but I didn’t until it was too late. I meant all along to tell him in time.”
“Why couldn’t he fool ’em, Dave?” I asked.
“Can’t you tell a tough when you see one?”
“I rather think I can.”
“Then so can we tell a gentleman. I’m a tough myself, and I know.”