“It might slip down the red lane of a country parson, but not down mine,” Chick went on. “You see, Miss Payson, I haven’t knocked round Quakertown all my life for nothing. I know all about you. I’ve seen you round town for years.”
“Suppose you have,” sneered Janet. “What of that?”
“Nothing of it, barring that I know all about you,” Chick informed her, more impressively. “Your name is Janet Payson, sometimes Jaunty Janet, and you live in a ground-floor flat in Martin Street. That’s what. You see, I am onto your curves, and I’m here to knock out a homer. That’s me!”
“See here——”
“Nix on the see-here gag!” Chick interrupted. “You wait till I’ve said my little verse. Then you can have your spiel and go as far as you like. You ain’t any main dame in the social game. You’re only the little casino in a soiled deck. Your word wouldn’t go in a Quaker meetinghouse, say nothing of a criminal court. I know! I’m wise! You can’t put nothing over on me.”
“Well, what are you coming to?” scowled Janet with the rouge glaring more vividly on her pale cheeks.
“That’s right. That’s more like it,” Chick went on, with a sinister nod. “Now we’re getting down to brass tacks. Pass up the grouch and let’s talk business.”
“Well?” snapped Janet.
“You know what I want. There was a slick job pulled off last night, and somebody has got sixty thousand bucks in his jeans. I want a bit of it.”
“You do!” Janet sneered. “You’ll take it out in wanting, then, as far as I’m concerned.”