“I guess there is a little left.”

“Say, Skip, I wants to ask you a question,” said Jack. “How comes it that this high-toned rooster, Elmer Greer, bosses the gang?”

“Elmer Greer—I don’t know any such person.”

“Oh, yes, you does.”

“Well, if I do,” muttered Brodie, “how comes it that you know him?”

“Oh, my eye, I knows all the bloods about town,” replied Tambourine Jack. “Crackers here can tell you that we move in the very best society.”

The fellow drew a cigar stub from his pocket and lighting it, said:

“That’s the kind Bill Vanderbilt smokes; he recommended the brand to me, saying: ‘Jack, my boy, lay in a stock of them; they will all be bought up within a few days, there is such a great demand.’”

Skip was in no humor for chaffing.

Dark passions reigned in his breast.