When, after luncheon—which he took at his home, with Chick and Patsy Garvan, his other confidential assistant, for table companions—Chick said he was going out and would not be back till nine at night, most likely, the detective only nodded. He knew that Chick was going after Swagara.
For some little time after the departure of Chick, the famous detective busied himself in looking over his mail, which he had not had time to attend to before, and Patsy Garvan helped him.
“Say, chief,” broke out Patsy, after working industriously for an hour sorting letters and putting them in their respective piles under Nick Carter’s eye, “can’t you let me in on this Yellow Tong case again? I was in it before, you know. Didn’t I make good then?”
“You certainly did, Patsy. I have no fault to find.”
“That’s what I thought. But, gee! You and Chick are having a lot of things doing with this Mr. Bentham, and I’m out of it. Of course, I ain’t kicking, because you[Pg 25] know what you want. But—gee!—I’d like to get into it. Ain’t there anything I can do?”
Nick Carter smiled as he tossed another letter across the table to the pleading Patsy.
“Put that letter in the ‘No-answer-required’ pile, and don’t get excited,” he said. “I’m going to get you into this case to-night.”
“You are?” almost screamed Patsy. “Suffering crumpets! That’s healthy news. Where do I come in? Have I got to lick somebody? Or is it to be the smooth and ‘Thanks-very-kindly’ stunt? Gee! When it comes to the fresh-laundried diplomatic game, with the honeyed words and eagle eye, you can count me in as standing on the pedestal, with both feet pressed down into the granite. Say, ‘Tact’ is my maiden name!”
“I’m glad to hear it,” smiled Nick Carter. “Because that is the quality I expect you to use. Still, there might be a fight, too. I hope you are not opposed to a scrap, if one should turn up.”
This was too much for Patsy. He could not reply. The bare idea that he, Patsy Garvan, who had licked all the boys of his weight and twenty pounds over, in his part of the Bowery, before he was sixteen, would want to sidestep a battle, completely choked him.