"Tough!" Bat nodded sagely. "A fellow remembers those things."
"I'll remember that one, all right," promised the other. "Don't let that worry you."
"Diamonds, I think you said." The big athlete looked appreciative, and labored with the Asiatic cookery.
"Some of them were as big as that," and Big Slim grouped some grains of rice upon the edge of his plate. "Not bad, eh?"
"Extra special," replied the big athlete, promptly. "Diamonds like that are only to be mentioned with great respect."
"It was one of the easiest kind of tricks to turn," said the burglar. "A woman had 'em—but I think I told you that. She wore 'em every night—and I framed the whole thing so that it couldn't fail. She lives up town, and gets home about the same time every night There was a scaffolding up the side of the house—right under her window."
Bat laughed and reached for a salt shaker with a great assumption of carelessness.
"It might have been built for you, eh?" said he. "Easy is right."
"I slipped up the scaffolding before she got home," said Big Slim, drifting, perhaps, unconsciously into the narrative. "And I was outside when she came into the room. She pulled down the blind, and then I moved over right under the window. The blind wasn't all the way down; so I laid fiat on the boards, and could see into the room."
Bat made an indefinite sort of noise down in his throat; perhaps the burglar fancied it indicated interest; at any rate he went on: