Spike looked somewhat embarrassed. He grinned apologetically and shuffled his feet.
“I’ve got dem, boss,” he said, with a smirk.
“Got them? Got what?”
“Dese.”
He plunged his hand in his pocket and drew forth, in a glittering mass, Lady Julia Blunt’s rope of diamonds.
★ 22 ★
How Two of a Trade did not Agree
“One hundred t’ousand plunks,” murmured Spike, gazing lovingly at them. “I says to meself, ‘De boss ain’t got no time to be gettin’ after dem himself. He’s too busy dese days wit jollyin’ along de swells. So it’s up to me,’ I says, ‘’cos de boss’ll be tickled to deat’, all right, all right, if we can git away wit dem.’ So I——”
Jimmy gave tongue with an energy which amazed his faithful follower. The nightmare horror of the situation had affected him much as a sudden blow in the parts about the waistcoat might have done. But now, as Spike would have said, he caught up with his breath. The smirk faded slowly from the other’s face as he listened. Not even in the Bowery, full as it was of candid friends, had he listened to such a trenchant summing-up of his mental and moral deficiencies.
“Boss!” he protested.
“That’s just a sketchy outline,” said Jimmy, pausing for breath. “I can’t do you justice impromptu like this. You’re too vast and overwhelming.”