“Spike the misogynist! You wait, Spike. Some day love will awake in your heart, and you’ll start writing poetry.”
“I’se not dat kind of mug, boss,” protested the Bowery boy. “I ain’t got no use for goils. It’s a mutt’s game.”
This was rank heresy. Jimmy laid down the razor from motives of prudence, and proceeded to lighten Spike’s reprehensible darkness.
“Spike, you’re an ass,” he said. “You don’t know anything about it. If you had any sense at all, you’d understand that the only thing worth doing in life is to get married. You bone-headed bachelors make me ill. Think what it would mean to you, having a wife. Think of going out on a cold winter’s night to crack a crib, knowing that there would be a cup of hot soup waiting for you when you got back, and your slippers all warmed and comfortable. And then she’d sit on your knee, and you’d tell her how you shot the policeman, and you’d examine the swag together! Why, I can’t imagine anything cosier. Perhaps there would be little Spikes running about the house. Can’t you see them jumping with joy as you slid in through the window and told the great news? ‘Fahzer’s killed a pleeceman!’ cry the tiny, eager voices. Sweets are served out all round in honour of the event. Golden haired little Jimmy Mullins, my godson, gets sixpence for having thrown a stone at a plain clothes detective that afternoon. All is joy and wholesome revelry. Take my word for it, Spike, there’s nothing like domesticity.”
“Dere was a goil once,” said Spike, meditatively. “Only I was never her steady. She married a cop.”
“She wasn’t worthy of you, Spike,” said Jimmy sympathetically. “A girl capable of going to the bad like that would never have done for you. You must pick up some nice, sympathetic girl with a romantic admiration for your line of business. Meanwhile, let me finish shaving, or I shall be late for dinner. Great doings on to-night, Spike.”
Spike became animated.
“Sure, boss! Dat’s just what——”
“If you could collect all the blue blood that will be under this roof to-night, Spike, into one vat, you’d be able to start a dyeing works. Don’t try, though. They mightn’t like it. By the way, have you seen anything more—of course you have. What I mean is, have you talked at all with that valet man—the one you think is a detective?”
“Why, boss, dat’s just——”