"An', Cig., we got, feelin' like th' sneak who foinds he's swiped a jar uv moldy pickles.
"'I thought I knowed th' whole uv th' graft game,' said Clivir, whin we'd got clear uv the joint, 'by theory, anyhow,' sez he, 'but, Split, take it from me, th' only people who's really on to it, an' knows th' size uv it, an' th' shape uv it, an' th' spread uv it, an' where it begins an' how it inds, an' what's in it, is th' Front Office an' th' guys behind it.'
"Which words was thrue, Cig.—they was sure thrue."
The next day, I called on Robins with the letter from the alleged victim of the land deal enterprise, asking him what he had to say about it.
He opened a desk, produced a box of cigars, passed them to me, and, looking me straight in the eyes, said, with a smile: "And what sort of answer do you want, anyhow?"
Whereupon I felt and saw that I was up against a cool, clever confidence man who had chosen to "work" in the Wall Street district instead of amid the environments of the usual sort.
Now you may or may not know it, but the confidence man of tip-top attainments cultivates the control and expression of his features with as much care as does the professional beauty—this for the reason that his looks are among his most valuable assets. For the first stage in "turning a trick," whether this be done in a Broadway hotel or a downtown office building, is for the operator to get a hold on the confidence of his victim by impressing him with his, the former's, frankness and honesty through the medium of his steady gaze, cheery smile and sincerity of expression in general. But "wise" people are not taken in by these things. Apart from all else, those who have had much to do with criminals—whether mugged or unmugged—will tell you that there is such a thing as the "crook eye," which invariably gives its owner away. It is, as I once heard a clever detective put it, "an eye behind the eye"—a something sinister peeping out from the bland and childlike gaze which the "con" turns on his prospective gull.
Robins's eyes were big and blue and clear, and almost infantile in their expression. Nevertheless, as he faced me smiling, I saw the "crook's eye" sizing me up, and I knew that old "Split's" story was more or less true. And, on the impulse of the moment, I began "throwing it into him" in the "patter" of the Under World.
Robins's eyes narrowed for an instant, but that was all. His command of his countenance was simply lovely. And I, as a connoisseur of things having to do with gun-dom, could not but sit and admire. Then he smiled, not quite so nice a smile as those he had been giving me. Mr. Robins realized that the need for professional effort had passed.
"Well," he said, after a meditative pause, "see that you're on, or think you are. And now what?" The laugh with which he finished the sentence was so unmistakably real that I at once became wary.