"We will have to send to Italy."
"Good enough. I will prepare my questions at once. You can send to Rome for what I want, and in the meantime I will be looking around. It will take about three weeks or a month for us to get a return from Rome. By that time I may have something to start out on, at least a subject for the working of the plan I may form after I hear from Rome."
"I see your point, Oscar; it's well taken."
Dudie Dunne prepared the questions he wished answered and started out for a little tour of observation. He was gotten up as the dude, but he had half a dozen different types of the dude with which he alternated in getting up his disguise. He also was able when occasion required to work the female racket as a cover beyond any other man who had ever attempted the role.
There was one feature of Dudie Dunne's disguises. He acted the character he assumed. He never lost his head or forgot himself, and going around as he did under the guise of one of the most harmless of mortals, he had excellent chances for getting information. Under the fleece of the lamb was the hide of the lion, and there was just where he came in when the crisis was presented. Oscar was standing on the corner of a street waiting for a car to pass when he saw a man suddenly leap off the car, and immediately afterward an old lady ran out to the platform screaming, "Stop thief! stop thief!"
The conductor did not even stop the car, but Dudie was at hand. He made a leap forward, only a leap, for the thief ran close to him, and he seized the rascal, when immediately a second man who had jumped off the car ran up while Oscar was struggling with the thief. The second man proved a confederate of the first, and he grabbed hold of Oscar. There was no policeman near, but a crowd had gathered and the people merely looked on, not understanding the cause of the struggle. They thought it was great fun, and one of the crowd created a laugh by yelling:
"Hang on to him, chappie; hang on to him."
Well, he did not hang on to him—he did better. Thief number two had hauled off to deal Oscar a tremendous blow. He was a large man and appeared to possess great strength, but to the surprise of everybody, chappie, as the crowd had dubbed our hero, let go the man he had been holding just in time to dodge a blow aimed at his head, and he countered with a stinger which sent his assailant staggering to the street. He then as quick as a wink, to the amazement of the crowd, dealt the man he had first seized a sockdologer and down he went, and at the same instant the old lady arrived on the scene. She had beheld the capture and saw the thief knocked out. The crowd cheered at the powers of chappie when the truth went flying around that the two men whom the chappie downed were pickpockets, and that the old lady was their victim. Our hero followed his man and took from him quick as lightning the purse which the thief had slid to his bosom. This he handed to the old lady, who quickly disappeared, and at the same instant a policeman arrived. The thief was a quickwitted fellow and he said:
"Arrest that man. He just robbed an old lady of her pocketbook."
Oscar did appear most like a thief and the policeman seized him.